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AN UNCONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT ^ 



SONGS OF 
THE DAILY LIFE 



BY 

FOLGER McKINSEY 

"THE BENTZTOWN BARD" 
Author "A Rose of the Old Regime," etc. 




BALTIMORE 

V/ILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY 

1911 






b 



Copyright, 191 1 

BY 
FOLGER McKjNSEY 



BAI.TTMOBE 

WA\'EELY PRESS 

IQII 



ICLA305026 



\urX. 



CONTENTS 

THE APRIL SPIRIT 

PAGE 

Hurry, April 7 

Sleeping Beauty 8 

Green Willow 9 

The Face of a Child 10 

A Day 11 

The Man with the Vision 12 

Master and Man 12 

Oh, Miss Springtime 13 

This Morning 14 

The Flood 15 

Somewhere 16 

Optimism 16 

The Voice of the Fiddle 17 

Heritage 18 

Pan's Perished Piping 20 

Miss Morning 21 

A Little More Cross 23 

King's Dust 24 

Unto the Stars 25 

The Help Unseen 27 

Beauty 28 

The Lovehness Within 29 

Laughter 30 

Thanksgiving 31 

Our Holy Trials 32 

The Unsatisfied 33 

Will-O'-the-Wisp 35 

The Wayfarer 36 

The Young and the Old 36 

The Happy Medium 37 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Little Apples 38 

WTien the Last Dream Dies 39 

The Samaritan 39 

The Little Bloom Street 40 

Ideals . . '. 40 

Motherhood 41 

The Lanes of Laughter 42 

My Father's House 43 

Black Sheep 44 

Confirmation 44 

Morning 45 

Blindness 45 

Ultima Thule 46 

Everydayness 47 

Mother's Day 48 

Each in his Place 49 

The Purpose Fine 50 

Glowworm Shining in the Grass 51 

Fate 52 

Unanswered 53 

In the Night 53 

The Shepherd is upon the Hills 54 

The Organ Monkey 55 

Lay Him Aside 56 

Today 57 

Over and Over 57 

We Miss Them So 58 

Traveling Home 59 

The City Birds 60 

Of the Dust 60 

The Ladder 61 

On the Main Highway 62 

A Whistle in the Dark 63 

The Loving Laborer 64 

God's Laughter 64 

Old Doctor Cheerfulness 65 



CONTENTS 



SWEETHEART LAYS 

PAGE 

Sweetheart 69 

Within Our Word 70 

The Magic Finger 71 

Love's Enchantment 72 

The Golden House 74 

The Building of the World 75 

My Love, There Is No Love Grows Old 76 

The Road to Arden 78 

Through Love to Light 79 

Love, the Living Beauty 80 

Elation 81 

The Inner Sight 82 

In Arcady 83 

December Song 84 

The Smile of a Woman 85 

The Age of Love 86 

LITTLE SAINT CHILD 

Little Saint Child 89 

The City of Childhood 90 

The Bachelor's Child 92 

The Beautiful Vision of Little Tot 94 

Boy Eternal 96 

A Crown of Childhood 98 

The Battle of the Baltic 100 

Reversals loi 

Boyhood Town 102 

The Pirate 103 

Two Dusty Shoes 104 

The Nightnoise 105 

The Holy Stairs 106 

The Charge of the Night Brigade 107 

His Mother 109 

The Little Children iii 



CONTENTS 



PACE 

Little Schoolgirl 112 

The Christmas Spell 113 

The March of the Much Beloved 114 

The Lamplighter 115 

A Glory I May Keep 116 

Counting Hi-Spy 117 

The Little One 118 

Girls 120 

Her Last Doll 121 

The Poor L ttle Feller What Hasn't No Ma 122 

A Little Child 124 

Childhood Spirit 125 

Little Child at Christmas 126 

The Washerwoman 127 

The World 128 

The Fat Little Girl 129 

Mud 131 

ROUND THE YEAR WITH NATURE 

The King of Spring 135 

How the Fishing Fever Comes 137 

September in the Lanes of Dream 139 

Ha wherries 140 

Song of the Thrush 141 

The Garden Cure 142 

A Vernal Event 143 

The Red-Wing 144 

Earth's Looking Glass 145 

A Child in Spring 146 

The Preacher of the Sunhght 147 

The Magic Banjo 148 

The Careless Singer 149 

His Catch 150 

After Death in Arcady 152 

Earth's Gladness 154 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The August Moon 155 

Calamus 156 

Snow on the Dream iS7 

Nature Deceives Me Not 158 

The Sermon of Light 159 

The Fairy Shore 161 

The Blue November Nights 162 

In the Spirit of Walton 164 

July Night 166 

The World of Autumn 167 

In Meadow's Still 168 

Premonitions 169 

The Flute of Twilight 170 

Fire 171 

The Brotherhood of Bloom 172 

The Palace Builders i73 

Miss Holly i74 

The Comfort of the Woods i7S 

FeeHng Fiddlish 176 

A Woodland Invitation i77 

The Dead Butterfly 178 

Vast Nature Keeps Her Counsel Still i79 

The Kentry 180 

The Gospel of the Green 181 

An Epitaph 182 

The Morning Mail 183 

Lighting the Flowers 184 

MARYLAND MAGIC 

The Moonlight Hills of Maryland 187 

Holly Hall 188 

Spring on the Severn 190 

Kent Island 191 

Ante-Bellum 192 

Charles Street in the Fall i94 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Cardinal's Yard i9'> 

Maryland Garden 196 

September Tide 198 

Talking Talbot 199 

The Old Bateau 200 

The State House Stairs 201 

The Honeyman 203 

Hinchhffe's Store 204 

Snow upon the Hills 205 

The Old Campaigners 206 

Dear Maryland Skies 207 

Annapolis 208 

The Phantom Ship 209 

Miss Tabby's School 211 

The Lily Lady 213 

Strawberry Man 215 

Oyster Wharves at Crisfield 216 

Cambridge 217 

Fields of the Green Tobacco 219 

The Old Main Line 220 

The Red-Clay Hills of Cecil 222 

Beneath the Trees of Druid Hill Park 224 

Frostburg 226 

The Hills of Howard 227 

Deer Creek Valley 229 

Love Point 231 

Elk Landing 232 

Spring in Southern Maryland 234 

Charles Street 235 

October on the Harford Hills 238 

Shanghaied 239 

WTien the Bay Boats Blow 241 

The Sunset Hills of Frederick 243 



CONTENTS 



IN DIXIE 

PAGE 

The Shade of Lee 247 

Old Friends from Virginia 249 

Shenandoah 250 

Onancock 252 

A Mother of Virginia 253 

BoHvar 255 

Virginia Fields of Autumn 256 

Berryville 257 

April Down in Dixie 258 

OLD-FASHIONED THINGS 

The Greenville Band 263 

Denial 264 

Candy ELisses 265 

The Shoemaker 266 

Hangin' on the Wagon 268 

"A Young Girl by Thomas Sully" 270 

The Old-Fashioned Beau 271 

The Two-Pin Show 272 

The Temple of Old Mothers 274 

The Little Brother of Brittomar 277 

Sleeping in the Garret 280 

The Army of Jim and Bill 282 

The Balsam-Apple Lady 283 

Plum-Colored Pants 285 

The Chestnut Vender 286 

The Poorhouse Yard 287 

The Train in the Night 289 

The Greenville Oyster Parlor 291 

The Scissors Grinder 293 

The Store that had the Bell Above the Door 294 

The Sleeping Mother 296 

Apple Toddy 298 

Old Man Tobacco 299 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Old Virginia Ham 300 

The Lass Beneath the Bonnet 301 

The Know-ing Friend 302 

Goodnight 304 



THE APRIL SPIRIT 



HURRY, APRIL 

MAKE the moonlight dream of April, 
Make the winds themselves contain 
All the silver ebullition 

Of her bloom and of her rain. 
Make the starlight tell of April, 

And the sunrise walk with her 
To the music of the meadows 
And the green vale's dulcimer. 

Let the dear one know we're waiting, 

Let her feel our heartbeat clear 
At the shadow of her footstep, 

At her great dream dawning near. 
Let her hurry, hurry, hurry. 

That our poignant grief may stay 
And the soul go out to meet her 

Where the woodbloom leads the way. 

Make the far sea murmur April, 

Make the hillsides whisper low 
That she lurks around the corner 

Like a ghost of long ago. 
All her girlish, winsome wonder. 

All her laughter and her tears. 
And the dew-bell of her dancing 

Coming down the twinkling years! 

7 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



SLEEPING BEAUTY 

MUTE the silver bugles now; 
Courtier, doff your plume and bowl 
Low, low, whisper low 
As beside her couch you go! 
Regal in her purple gloom 
Sleeps she in her purple room; 
Years and years and years agone 
She put slumber's beauty on; 
Golden tress and cheek of rose, 
Throat more marble than the snows; 
Lips too sweet for love to kiss, 
Love to kiss, love to kiss! 

Halt your steed, impatient knight. 
Here is Beauty, breathing light! 
Little hand in careless spell 
Fallen like a coral shell 
On her breast, so pure the day 
Turns its garish beams away. 
Arm above her little face. 
Molded in Minerva's grace — 
Years and years ago in sleep 
Came the shadow-wings acreep 
In her eyes, too sweet for thee 
Evermore to open see. 

Older than the antique lace 
Curtaining her form of grace; 
Older than the breath of musk 

8 



GREEN WILLOW 



Breathing here its bloom of dusk, 

In the silence of her lips 

Is the cry that never slips 

From the heart within her breast, 

Aching centuries of rest 

Till the golden note be heard. 

Till the right tongue utters word 

Of the living speech that dwells 

In love's lost, archaic spells! 

GREEN WILLOW 

GREEN grows the willow-o, 
Green grow the grasses 
Where we kissed and let them go — 

All the bonny lasses; 
Where we kissed and let them go — 
Don't you let their mothers know! 
Green grew the willow-o 
In that land of long ago, 
Gone, gone forever! 

Green grows the willow-o, 

Fast fades its gleaming; 
Sweetly the song and low 

Drifts through our dreaming; 
Shadows, shadows through the years, 
Memory walking in her tears, 

Green grows the willow-o 

In that land of long ago, 
Gone, gone forever! 

9 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE FACE OF A CHILD 

IT may not have mattered much, 
And it really was nothing at all — 
A child with that infinite touch 

Of a child with her arm round a doll: 
But somehow wherever I went 

And whatever took place all day, 
Her face was a sacrament sent 
To keep me from going astray! 

Some would not have given a thought 

To so purely a commonplace thing 
As a child with her visage enfraught 

With the light and the bloom of the spring: 
But it followed me, haunting and sweet, 

And her laughter rang on in my ears, 
And I smiled through the dust and the heat 

And forgot there were sorrow and tears ! 

It might have no meaning at all, 

Mere fancy, a flash and a gleam, 
But I felt all the day in the thrall 

Of a radiant and lovable dream: 
Just that the face of a child, 

A glimpse of it, passing, and then 
The laughter of Hps ringing wild. 

Kept me sweet in my battle with men! 



ID 



A DAY 
A DAY 

YOU will remember the day, and so will I, will I, 
When a ladder of snow-white roses leaned down from 
the soft blue sky, 
And there on the violet rungs, with wings of the feather- 
bloom, 
She came tiptoe to our wintry world with a breath of the 
May's perfume. 

You will remember the day — oh, who could forget such a 

gleam. 
When we looked again from the barren lanes to the far blue 

deeps of dream. 
And June in a winter world came down with her golden hair, 
Rose by rose on the violet rungs of the ladder stretching 

there. 

Over her all the song, over her all the glow, 

The drifting shimmer of sky and cloud, when buds on the 

plum bough blow; 
Dainty her steps as the tink of far-off fairyland bells. 
And we felt her weave in a dance of spring the web of her 

wonder spells. 

You will remember the day, and so will I, will I, 

When earth looked up from hei wintry sleep to the blue of 

an April sky; 
When out of the cloud and gleam a ladder of roses swung, 
And down she came to the barren lanes, violet rung by rung ! 

II 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE MAN WITH THE VISION 

HE who has the vision sees more than you or I; 
He who Hves the golden dream lives four-fold thereby; 
Time may scoff and worlds may laugh, hosts assail his thought, 
But the visionary came ere the builders wrought. 
Ere the tower bestrode the dome, ere the dome the arch, 
He, the dreamer of the dream, saw the vision march! 

He who has the vision hears more than you may hear. 
Unseen lips from unseen worlds are bent unto his ear, 

From the hills beyond the clouds messages are borne, i 

Drifting on the dews of dream to his heart of morn; | 

Time awaits and ages stay till he wakes and shows ; 

Glimpses of the larger Hfe that his vision knows! ? 

He who has the vision feels more than you may feel, 
Joy beyond the marrow joy in whose realm we reel — 
For he knows the stars are glad, dawn and middled ay, 
In the jocund tide that sweeps dark and dusk away. 
He who has the vision lives round and all complete. 
And through him alone we draw dews from combs of 
sweet ! 

MASTER AND MAN 

GOD can take a petal and a calix and a stem 
And make a rose of beauty for a garden's diadem; 
God can take a hollow and a basin and a rise 
And from them rear a mountain peaked with beauty to the 

skies; 
Man can take a piston and a lever and a wheel 
And make a mighty engine — but the mountain bore the steel! 

12 



OH, MISS SPRINGTIME 



God can take a raindrop and a million years of dew 

And make a shining ocean where the heaven is mirrored blue ; 

God can take a morning and a bird with azure wing 

And turn a lane of bluets into amplitudes of spring; 

Man can take a hammer and a footrule and a saw 

And build a noble temple — but His spirit gives the Law! 

God can take some pollen and a blossom and a tree 
And make a fruited orchard on a barren tract of lea; 
God can take an acorn and where craters used to smoke 
Implant the rugged beauty of a grand and glorious oak; 
Man can take a keelson and a hull and in a slip 
Construct a mammoth vessel — but God's oak is in the ship! 



OH, MISS SPRINGTIME 

OH, Miss Springtime, flirting with me 
In the catkin bud on the willow tree; 
Winking, Winking, blithe and spry. 
With a breast full of bloom and a cheek full of sky! 

Oh, Miss Springtime, aren't you sweet. 

With a song on your lips where the rose-buds meet, 

A buttercup in the gold of your hair. 

And a heart that's a regular devil-may-care! 

Oh, Miss Springtime, give me your hand 

For a romp in the dell and a race o'er the land, 

A breath of the bloom and a cup of the blue. 

And a kiss from the lips that are burning for you I 

13 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THIS MORNING 

THIS morning, I felt just so bad 
I could not see how hearts were glad 
In such a world where day by day 
We have to rise and face the fray, 
And on and on through all the years — 
And yet, I thought, the sunlight cheers! 

This morning I turned over twice 
And said, why, is it worth the price 
This strain, this stress, this up and off, 
With pain and ache and chill and cough, 
And day by day the same old thing — 
And yet, I thought, the world does sing! 

This morning I woke up so blue 

I almost failed — as all men do — 

To see how wide and sweet God's day 

Walked to my heart from far away. 

And pouted there in my wee room — 

And yet, I thought, God sends the bloom! 

This morning, thuSj from dark to light 
I came at last to know my night 
Was not such night, my pain not pain. 
My world not dark nor toil in vain, 
For somewhere, always, love lifts wings, 
And always, always something sings. 



14 



THE FLOOD 



THE FLOOD 

ALL comes back in a flood some moment, 
The word we spoke or the thing we did; 
Yesterday's lie and the heart's wild foment, 

The shamefaced thing that the years had hid. 
All comes back in a flood onrushing, 

The childhood venture, the foolish act. 
The word ill-spoken, the faith ill-broken. 
All the Past loomed up in a deathless Fact. 

A thousand miles from the place it happened. 

A dozen years from the time and chance — 
But there it is when the flood comes rushing, 

The faces glow and the figures dance! 
Never were thoughts so far from the matter, 

Yet out of the dim, dead years it flies; 
And there is the deed, or the silly chatter. 

The awkward scene or the bitter lies. 

This comes, then, as the dead truth, certain. 

That all we have lived — till our lives have end- 
Is there in the folds of the velvet curtain. 

In the arrased nook where our memories wend: 
All comes back in a flood some moment 

When least expected, when none may know. 
The lie and the cheat and the heart's wild foment. 

Between the eyes like a sudden blow! 



15 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

SOMEWHERE 

SOMEWHERE a softness glows, 
Somewhere it comes and goes 
Into your life and mine, 
Mortal and yet divine! 

Somewhere a sweetness speeds 
Unto our sorest needs; 
Under the gloom, the clod, 
Upward it grows to God. 

Somewhere, in field or stream; 
Somewhere, in deed or dream; 
Somewhere a sweetness clings 
Round us with wandering wings! 



Somewhere, in darkest hour. 
Bird-song or bloom-o '-flower, 
Lo, at our weary feet. 
Somewhere, its sweetness, sweet! 



OPTIMISM 

A SONG in the shadow, 
A smile through the gloom ; 
Beyond the rained river 

A garden in bloom. 
Again to the hill-top 
And over and on, 

i6 



THE VOICE OF THE FIDDLE 

Though death and the battle 

Loom dark in the dawn! 
A star in the heavens, 

A bow in the sky; 
A heart beating dauntless, 

A head lifted high. 
A faith in what happens, 

All things for the best, 
While God's in His heaven 

And love's in the breast! 

THE VOICE OF THE FIDDLE 

THE fiddle is naught if it is not human. 
With the soul of a bird and the voice of a woman, 
The heart of the hill and the melody 
Of a thousand ages of wind on the sea! 

The fiddle is fine when they wake who will 
The sobs and laughter that leap and thrill 
From buried valleys of bird and rose 
The lovers that deep in its heart repose! 

The fiddle is spring, with its chrysalis gloom 
Blown by the breath of the birth of bloom 
Till hill and meadow are honeycomb sweet 
With dew of the clover beneath love's feet! 

The fiddle is joy in the midst of a tree 
Trembling to tell of the deeps of its glee, 
Shouting and ringing and bursting with pain, 
Then whispering sadly — a woman again! 

17 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
HERITAGE 

WHAT is this that calls me out, 
What is this that sets me wild 
With the dream of fairy rout, 

With the lightheart of the child? 
Father Adam, I am sprung 

From the old, old garden spell, 
When the seas were all so young, 
And the green hills, and the dell! 

Was I gypsy on a time, 

Like a wind that wants to go 
Now across the mountain's rime, 

Now where valleyed rivers flow? 
In some old, ancestral day 

Did I keep my master's sheep, 
With a reedy flute to play 

Till the charmed things came a-creep? 

Was I once a soldier lad. 

With a breastplate and a spear? 
Or a sailor, always glad 

That the seas were always near? 
Something vagrant in my heart. 

Something eldrich in my soul 
Takes me out where green hills art. 

Takes me out where gray seas roll! 



i8 



1 



HERITAGE 



In the silver of the moon, 

In the amber of the sun, 
Glow my dawns with dreams of June, 

Gleam my days with youth begun; 
I had grandsires who were men 

On the coasts of old romance. 
And their blood is mine again, 

And their javelins and their lance ! 

I was sometime little child 

On a beach of coral bloom. 
And my braided locks blew wild 

On a foreland's rocky flume; 
That is why the sea is sweet. 

And the hills are sweet at morn, 
And the reeds around my feet 

Wear the shape of Triton's horn! 

Blood beyond the blood of birth, 

Joy beyond the joy of Hfe, 
Bring me back to mother earth 

Like a Pagan with a fife; 
I am with you, shepherd man, 

And our sheep are on the hill; 
And the pibrochs call the clan, 

And the claymores come to kill! 



19 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
PAN'S PERISHED PIPING 

IT was on a merry day in the bloomy marge of May 
Pan sat piping, 
Sweetly piping, 
On his reedy pipes of passion in the old familiar way. 
But it sounded very clear 
To the world's distracted ear — 
Perished piping, like an echo from a far, forgotten day! 

There were teardrops^in his throat, but where deathless 
echoes float 

Pan sat piping. 
Sweetly piping. 
The same old god, half human, and the same old god, half goat, 
And the sleeping naiads woke 
To the wind-dance of the oak 
And the old, remembered cadence of a vanished woodland 
note! 

Where the willow rushes quiver by the marges of the river, 

Pan sat piping, 
Sweetly piping. 
Tears of dream were in his eye and his lips were loud with 
sigh. 

But to me in tones of old 
O'er and o'er his piping told 
That the gods are dead forever, but the song can never die ! 



20 



MISS MORNING 



MISS MORNING 

I HAVE drunk the rhythmic dew, 
I have felt the silver sun 
Touch me where the skies of blue 

Round a golden margin run; 
But the beating of my heart — 
Ah, it will not yet be still — 
When upon her feet of rose 

Stood Miss Morning on the hill! 

I have loved a quiet world, 

With a little corner set 
For the greenwood dreams we knew 

Who are fairy children yet; 
But it never seemed so quaint, 

And it never hushed so queer. 
Till in exhalations faint 

Came Miss Morning tripping near! 

What were bolts and what were bars 

That the world put up at night? 
For with fingers that were stars 

She hath pushed them back with Hght! 
Here she dances, there she goes, 

Up the hill and o'er the stream. 
Half a radiance, half a rose, 

Sunshine sifted through a dream! 



Now I mind me, all the years 

She hath come and she hath gone, 

21 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Oft in smiles and oft in tears, 

Shapes of dusk and flash of dawn; 

But tomorrow, as today. 

Wherefore that the wine is sweet. 

She will be as new-mown hay. 
She will glide on twinkling feet! 

Enter, lady, bow and sweep. 

We are young whom time called old. 
And the dew we drink in sleep 

Turns the dream of dust to gold! 
Bells and hammers cease their din, 

Mawls and mallets pause on high; 
God has come to lift a sin — 

And a rose falls from the sky! 

She will tiptoe and advance. 

While the little noises wait. 
And the blush-rose hides its glance 

Till she passes Beauty's gate; 
She will swerve and she will swing, 

And the lips of love will thrill 
With the matins that they sing 

To Miss Morning on the hill! 

I have felt this touch before; 

It was somewhere, I was what? 
Morning in the gone before. 

Sunrise in the life forgot! 



22 



A LITTLE MORE CROSS 



But the dew I taste, 'twas then 
As it is and yet will be — 

Wine of child in hearts of men, 
And the morn upon the sea! 



A LITTLE MORE CROSS 

A LITTLE more cross and a little less creed, 
A Httle more beauty of brotherly deed: 
A little more bearing of things to be borne. 
With faith in the infinite triumph of morn. 
A little less doubt and a little more do 
Of the simple, sweet service each day brings to view; 
A little more cross, with its beautiful light, 
Its lesson of love and its message of right; 
A Httle less sword and a little more rose 
To soften the struggle and lighten the blows; 
A little more worship, a little more prayer. 
With the balm of its incense to brighten the care; 
A little more song and a Httle less sigh. 
And a cheery good-day to the friends that go by. 
A little more cross and a Httle more trust 
In the beauty that blooms like a rose out of dust; 
A little more lifting the load of another, 
A little more thought for the life of a brother; 
A little more dreaming, a Httle more laughter, 
A little more childhood, and sweetness thereafter; 
A Httle more cross and a little less hate. 
With love in the lanes and a rose by the gate! 



23 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



KING'S DUST 

^ ' T AM king's dust, don't kick me so!" 
1 I tossed it careless on my toe. 
A barefoot boy might thus have done 
On dusty roadways in the sun, 
As thoughtless as a lad that day 
I heard the voice but kicked away. 

'' I am king's dust! " Why, over there 
A thousand kings may He. Don't care ! 
A thousand captains, maybe more. 
Are swept each morning from the floor 
Of this great room of life where we 
Dance in the dust that once was glee! 

" I am king's dust ! " On with the dance ! 
He had his day, he took his chance, 
He lies as low as Csesar did. 
Whose dust may now be some stone lid 
For crockery. Though with putty mended, 
The Roman fiddler's day is ended! 

"I am child's dust!" Ah, that's more true! 
My feet, indeed, turn back from you! 
Child's dust, sweet dust, such dust as men- 
If all were kings — might well lift up 
And bow to and weep for again 
In some Greek urn or sacred cup! 



24 



UNTO THE STARS 



UNTO THE STARS 

UNTO the stars, and still the stars, the stars, 
Ever the caged wings beating against the bars, 
Ever the hunger of body for bread of soul; 
On the high steps where universes roll. 
Oh, for the wished-for, starlit regions there. 
From peak to peak to leap along the air; 
Prospero's cloak to wake the magic gale 
And summon Ariel on a courier wing; 
And yet, how futile! Conquering, or to fail, 
A gust of effort and a race unrun, 
A light life lived along a verge of spring, 
Joy of the morn and dalliance of the sun. 
Crowned, uncontented, ever new fields to find, 
Roses of red dawns faded, young eyes blind; 
Life, with its aim of the starry and starlit way, 
Dust on the lip, a shadow at end of day, 
A bubble of silver broken along the wind! 

Unto the stars, unto the stars and on. 

Out of the night to the hills of the utmost dawn! 

Oh, for the starlit regions, wished for height. 

And then, but a little of lily and April light, 

A little of laughter, a blown thing, eerie and wild. 

Lost in the dust of valley of little child! 

Oh, for the starlit regions ! Roaring they go. 

Seekers of golden apples, builders of bloom. 

Planting their blocks of kingdoms row on row. 

Breaking their bones at benches of spindle and loom. 

Stepping the steps of the silver and singular dream: 

25 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Commoner, laborer, emperor, belted earl, 

Dandy and driveler, bearers of banner and beam, 

Poet and painter, balladist, dancing girl. 

Chieftains and shepherds and keepers of prairie herds. 

Maskers and mummers, healers, and men of words: 

Spun-gold people — unto the stars, the stars, 

Ever the caged wings beating against the bars, 

A Hght and a gloom, a lily, a song of lark, 

Blind in the beat of the bUnding and nearing Hght, 

Out of the ocean a wind and a sudden dark, 

Lips at the foot of the wall dumb in a wail of the night! 

Unto the stars, ages and ages still. 

Thunder of feet of the throngs at the foot of the hill; 

Prophet and prelate, jester and baubled clown. 

Children of hope to a piper of Hamelin town 

Tripping as children have tripped in a legend old 

Unto the shores where the seas of the dead unfold; 

Hundred-eyed buildings, cages to hft life up. 

Swarming like bees in the bloom of a honey-cup; 

Oh, for the starlit regions, ribbon and thread. 

Laughter winding its web in the life half dead; 

Roaring stations pouring in rumbling street 

Comings and goings of hordes of a million feet. 

Ships like leviathan cities, lightning along a wire, 

London talking to Lapland, tongued with fire, 

Boston boasting to Bagdad, over the seas 

Of poles invisible harnessed to catch and toss 

Words of the wind on the multiple routes of the breeze. 

And the wild night hung in the loop of the Southern Cross! 

26 



THE HELP UNSEEN 



Unto the stars — babies hold hands and dimb, 

Starward moving to starlit regions of time; 

Beat, white wings, at the bars of the cage of strife, 

Unto the starlit regions beating to life, 

Broken and baffled! But what are the legions that come 

Out of the dust of valleys of ages dumb: 

The broken unbroken, the baffled unbaffled, the dead 

Quickened with climbing to tread with the dauntless tread 

Age, with a bone-worn finger clutching and hung 

Unto and over the rust of the utmost rung; 

Youth, at the bottom, with blood on a golden curl. 

But a rose in the lip of the dust that was lip of girl. 

And a song God sings for the lips that were dead ere they sung ! 

THE HELP UNSEEN 

THERE is no shadow, however drear. 
But the silver lining is there, my dear; 
There is no trouble, or grief, or care. 
No hopeless burden and dark despair. 
But someone's message of cheer and love 
Is drifting down on the wings of dove. 
And someone's gentle and helpful smile 
Is warm and bright at the end of the mile! 
There is no burden, however great, 
No cross to carry, of sin or hate. 
But under us, fainting, to Hft and hold, 
The unseen, beautiful clasp and fold 
Of arms of comfort and cheer and grace 
Reach out from the spiritual bournes of space ! 
27 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



BEAUTY 

SHE never complains, 
If it shines or it rains. 
She never forgets — 
In a world of regrets — 
That holy all purpose is, 
Sacred all will — 
The dew in the valley. 
The blue on the hill! 

She takes with contentment, 
Nor breath of resentment. 
The rough and the tender, 
Well-knowing the Sender 
Designs in each test 
The one thing that is best 
For beauty that serveth 
For those who behold her, 
And dreaming the dream. 
To their spirits enfold her. 

She comes to all moments 

Unchangeably true. 

Above all the foments 

In me or in you, 

A holiness helping her serve and not sigh 

When the banners go by 

'Neath the bright of the sky 

Or the bitter, the rain. 

28 



THE LOVELINESS WITHIN 

Even down in the dust 
Of the street and the plain 
"I will sing!" is her cry: 
''I will trust!" 



THE LOVELINESS WITHIN 

THERE must be loveliness within — no man can live a 
life 
Clean of the heart-corroding stain that blurs the deeps of 

strife, 
Lest there be back of strength and will, the courage and the 

might. 
An inner loveliness that leads to sweetness and to light. 

There must be loveliness within — no artist paints a face 
With tender and immortal bloom of beauty and of grace, 
Unless behind the face a soul — profound and pure and sweet — 
Burns in the loveliness to make the portraiture complete. 

There must be loveliness within — the marble visage glows 
Not with the sculptor's dream alone, but with the thoughts 

that rose 
Of the ennobling life and deed his subject — man or woman — 
Gave to the world to help it grow more wise and sweetly 

human. 



29 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

LAUGHTER 

BUBBLE on the pipes of spring, 
Blown by lips of violet May; 
Music on a wandering wing, 
Velvet in a dream of play; 
Essence of a bloom of light 
Dropping by a dewy hill, 
Honeyed in a summer's night 
On a fairy daffodil. 

Rippling of a liquid lute 

Bosomed on a bending stream; 
Lily, with her yellow flute 

Piping in a purple dream; 
Echo of a far-off vale, 

Throbbing with the muse of sleep, 
Caught by raptured nightingale 

Lonely on a rhythmic deep. 

Youth upon a trembling voice. 

Beauty in a shaken mist; 
Heartbeat of a dawn's rejoice, 

Kissing of a maid unkist; 
Patter of the feet of rose, 

Tinkle of the fairy dance; 
Love, with all the things she knows. 

And she knoweth not, perchance. 

Moment of an airy spell, 
Lifting of a heavy fate; 

30 



THANKSGIVING 



Poetry, from a dreamy dell, 

Leading through a rosy gate; 
Clapping of the hands of trees, 

Opening of the lids of June; 
Roaring of a thousand seas 

In a shell of antic tune. 

Morning of a voice of cheer, 

Starlight of a sound awake; 
Music on an anvil clear 

Where love's silver hammers shake: 
Laughter — oh, what may it be 

But the sledge the lovesmith swings, 
Fashioning by his silver sea 

Childhood out of dewdrop wings! 

THANKSGIVING 

LET us give thanks at Thanksgiving 
That we're singing and laughing and living; 
Thankful, we say, just to live by the way 
In sunlight and starlight that scatter their ray; 
Thankful, indeed, for the rose and the gleam. 
The smile and the song and the beautiful dream. 

Let us give thanks for the glory. 

The daily life's wonderful story, 

The fields that we know and the hills where the glow 

Of sunlight falls soft and the water brooks flow; 

Thankful, sweetheart, for the joy and the bliss. 

The arms 'round the neck and the love-laden kiss! 

31 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

OUR HOLY TRIALS 

THE holiest things in our life, I say, 
Are the trials that harrow us day by day. 
The holy trials, that are hard to bear — 
The loss and sorrow, and grief and care, ■*T| 

Sent by a wiser will than ours, ; 

Just as the wild birds are, and flowers! 

Yea, they are hoHest things, I cry. 
To teach us sweetness of living by; 
And truth and honor and patient trust, 
And sweet content in the blinding dust 
Or sunny cool of the morn that lies 
Dewy and bright in the sunlit skies. 

Trials of suffering, trials of loss. 

The burden of bearing a bitter cross — 

Holiest ornaments, these, of life; 

Tenderest symbols of lofty strife; 

Trials to worship, not blame and curse 

With a discontent that makes them worse. 

Holy trials are these trials of ours — 

Weeds that mingle among the flowers 

To help us open impartial eyes, 

In deepening vision to realize 

How sweet the blooms that we might not see 

Were it not for the trials 'neath which they grow, 

Till, braving the battle of hfe, we go 
To lift the shadows and set them free! 

32 



THE UNSATISFIED 



THE UNSATISFIED 

A WAILING out of Askelon, a cry from Babylon — 
"Oh, wherefore should we suffer thus for that which we 
have done!" 
An echo from the buried dust of Rome and Greece and Tyre — 
"We are forespent who gave our oil and burned our altar 

fire!" 
A moaning where the temples rise, and out of Nineveh 
Tlie discontent of nations Hfts its voice against the sea: 
But over all the wailing wind 

From throats that parch for wine. 
Three crosses on a lonely hill 
All in the starlight shine! 

With Dives crying in the gate and Lazarus at the door; 
With wealth because it is oppressed and want because 'tis 

poor, 
Oh, hear the voice of Babylon, the cry from tomb and fane 
Of what they lack and what they want and what they feel 

of pain — 
Unsatisfied, unsatisfied, unhappy. Lord, are those 
Who tremble when it rains the rain or when it rains the rose : 

But over all the echoing cry 
Of Tyre and Nineveh, 

A bleeding side, a crown of thorns — 
Lama sahachthani! 

Oh, weary world, what more to ask, what thirst ye cannot 

slake. 
What pity in the voice ye lift, the wailing cry ye make? 

2>Z 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



For if ye suffer and ye bleed, or if I — being one 

Who walks uncovered to the wind, unsheltered to the sun — 

What have we borne, what have we known of all dark loss 

and hate 
Who build our marts against the sky, our temples in the gate? 
For over all our paltry ache, 

Our wailing and our moan, 

A woman at his bleeding feet 

On Calvary's mount alone! 

Thus, when from Babylon ye call, and out of Rome ye cry, 
And when in Tyre and Nineveh ye lift your hands on high, 
Why should not Time stand still and laugh, and many smile 

who know 
That blood-red chronicle of grief, that high, sweet soul of 

woe, 
That perfect patience and content, that cross supremely 

borne; 
That wounded side and pierc-ed brow and bleeding hands 

and torn? 

Why should not Pity turn her face 
And Sorrow scorn your prayer, 

All in the sight of that dark night 
He made atonement there! 

Peace, little love crouched by my side! Peace in our hour 

of gloom! 
We who have little have so much ! White roses are in bloom 
Beside the road to Babylon and on the way to Tyre, 
And Nineveh is not all lust and Troy not all desire! 



34 



--1 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP 



All, all the way a wailing comes from Dives at the gate, 
And Lazarus beside the door at Mammon hurling hate: 
But over all the wailing word 

Of throats that parch for wine. 
Three crosses on a lonely hill 
All in the starlight shine! 



WILL-O'-THE-WISP 

IT was a globe, it was a gleam, 
It was a shadow on the stream; 
It was a light, it was a ray, 
It was a goblin dressed in gray: 
But where it went or how it flew, 
I could not answer that: Could you? 

It might have been a little gnome 
With lighted candle wandermg home; 
It might have been a glowworm hid 
The lazy lily leaves amid: 
But now I think, whate'er befall. 
It wasn't anything at all! 

It might have been a firefly sent 
To light some elfin sacrament; 
For, oh, such priestly calm befell 
The quiet beauty of the dell, 
It seemed a childhood soul went out 
To see the night and walk about! 



35 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE WAYFARER 

NOW I have come to a little green way 
And I set down my pack in the twilight gray; 
Now I have come to a silver-bright stream, 
And I lie on the moss by its brink for a dream ! 

Oh, dream that I dream by the little green way. 
As I set down my pack by the twilight so gray; 
Dream that I dream by the little green shore, 
Oh, dear, how it seems like old lives lived before! 

So, I wake and I wander again on my road, 
With my pack on my back and each day a fresh load; 
And I wonder and wonder some day when I lie. 
With the shadows above and no light in my eye; 

So, I wake and I wonder what dreaming will be 
When I lie, little heart, in the silence with thee; 
And I hope and I trust it will be, it will seem 
Like a life unto life and a dream unto dream! 

THE YOUNG AND THE OLD 

THE oldest man I ever knew 
Was a little lad whom Fate 
Had marked with care when life was new 
And he was half-past eight! 

The youngest man I ever saw 

Was a wrinkled chap and eld 
Who in his heart that lad's lost youth 

Like a white rosebud held! 

36 



THE HAPPY MEDIUM 



THE HAPPY MEDIUM 

NOT to be Hfted too high 
By the hopes that are bright and fair; 
Not to be cast too far 

By the shadows of Hfe's despair; 
Not to be made too glad 

With the wonderful wild dream winging; 
Not to be made too sad 

With the bells for the dead dreams ringing! 

Not to be made too sure 

Of the triumph beyond the fight; 
Not to count all life lost 

Because of a little night; 
Not to expect too much Q 

Of the infinite struggle^ and strife; 
Not to be too much hurt 

By the infinite wounding of life! 

Not to be lifted up 

More than is proper or wise; 
Not to feel doom or defeat 

In the little drawbacks that arise; 
Daily a measure of cheer, 

The hlting of laughter and song, 
With wisdom of faith and of fear 

To suffer and still be strong! 



37 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

LITTLE APPLES 

THE Lord made little apples, 
And He made them one and all 
To fulfill a special purpose 

And to meet some urgent call; 
They are not always perfect, 

And they're knotty as can be 

Just like some little people 

That are known to you and me. 

The Lord knew little apples 

Would be scoffed at and forlorn. 
And so He gave them patience 

And a hardness unto scorn; 
And He made them extra sturdy, 

And as sweet as they could be — 
Just like some little people 

That are known to you and me. 

Often thus, the little apples 

Keep the longest, last the best, 
When the populace has eaten 

And forgotten all the rest; 
And we like them all the better 

Just for being what they be — 
As we like some little people 

That are known to you and me. 



38 



THE SAMARITAN 



WHEN THE LAST DREAM DIES 

WHEN the last dream dies, then let me go; 
When the last bloom fades, then lay me low; 
When the last child sings on the stairs of light, 
Good-by, proud world, and a last good-night! 

When the last dream dies, then let me sleep. 
Where the green grass grows and the daisies creep; 
When the last sweet laughter of childhood rings, 
Ah, carry me, Death on thy wide gray wings! 

When the last dream dies, dies the last hope, too. 
And the last bright flash of youth and dew, 
And the last desire of the mortal will 
As the heart-beat stops in a world grown still! 

THE SAMARITAN 

GOD'S hand under the heart that sinks, 
God's wing over the head that droops — 
He shall not fail, if he will, who drinks 

Of the waterbrooks where the white rose stoops! 
He shall not falter whose cross is borne 

For lips of love and the kiss they bring, 
Whose toil is joy and whose faith is morn. 

Whose hope is a rare, wild bird of spring! 
He shall not perish, he shall not fall 

Who goes on doing the best he can — 
With God's grace under and over all — 

To dream and dare for the good of man! 

39 



SONGS OFTHE DAILY LIFE 
THE LITTLE BLOOM-STREET 

I CAME along down by the little bloom-street, 
A-dreaming a dream by the way that was sweet; 
I came along down by the little green lane, 
With a tune in my heart of my youth come again! 

I came along down by the way I had known 

In the days that are dust and the years that have flown; 

And everything seemed as it used to be, sweet. 

In the little green lane and the little bloom-street! 

I came along down, and the maples were there, 
And my heart was as light as a leaf on the air. 
For I knew the old way and I knew the old place, 
And each friend that I met wore a smile on his face! 

Ah, happy and happy, and happy the day 
That I came along down by the little green way. 
For the song in my heart brought me back the old gleam, 
And the joy of my youth bloomed again in the dream! 

IDEALS 

LIFE must have its ideals; what would it be without? 
Merely the tradesmen's tumult, merely the myriad's 
shout; 
Down in the daily struggle, down in the storm and stress, 
Cometh the wings of dreaming, lifting us out of the less, 
Lifting us out of the minor unto the major chord. 
Blaze of the awful banners, light of the sword! 

40 



MOTHERHOOD 



Life must have its ideals; what would it be to go 

Daily upon the darkling, limitless round of woe? 

Ever without the lifting thought and hope and bloom 

Of higher and beautiful purpose changing the ancient gloom 

Into auroral splendors, widening our scope of thought. 

Ever upon the forges beauty by beauty wrought ! 

Life must have its ideals, else it were dreary indeed. 
Dust in an ancient service, motes in a mindless creed, 
Beating our wings as bats do ever against the wall 
Till in the utter darkness unto the dark they fall; 
Fairy the light, sweet fanc}^; noble, indeed, the gleam, 
Lighting the life around us on to the higher dream! 



MOTHERHOOD 

TO wait till every child comes home. 
With patience by the hearth to keep 
Watch for the little hearts that roam 
Back to her breast that gave them sleep. 

To journey every day their way 
In dreaming and in thoughts of love, 

Shining unseen amid their play, 
Bending on unseen wings above. 

To mend them and to make them whole, 
To heal them and to make them strong; 

Then, at the last, O lonesome soul, 
Gone, and no listener to her song! 

41 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE LANES OF LAUGHTER 

I WISH to go down in the lanes of life's laughter, 
To sing the sweet songs that are here and hereafter; 
I dream of an April, I long for a May 
Before the old fashion of joy passed away, 
A green lane of life in the valleys of sun 
Where the very first fancies of life have begun; 
The lanes of life's laughter — ah, lead me to life 
In the vales of the sun from the cities of strife! 

I wish for the fairies, and wishing is sweet — 
For the fairies of life in the apple-bloom street. 
Ho! for the dancing, the music, the gleam. 
The dream of love's dreaming in valleys of dream; 
Beneath the green oak and the wide-spreading beech, 
With song on the lips and with love in our reach: 
The lanes of life's laughter — sometimes they are far, 
Beyond the blue hills and beyond the green star! 

I wish for the days of the bloom of bright wings 

In the groves of sweet life where the nightingale sings; 

The plashing of waters along a wild shore. 

And the Httle child-hearted adventures of yore; 

The violet-fresh fancies that lifted us high 

To the deeds that we'd do and the deaths we would die: 

The lanes of life's laughter, its mystical trees, 

Its silver, its sobbing, its world-circling seas! 

I wish to go down to the fragrant, green places 
Of phantom and shadow and bloom-girted graces; 
The tinkling of bells where the cattle cross over, 

42 



MY FATHER'S HOUSE 



The vales of the vine and the meads of the clover; 
The hills of the sheep, where the keeper of sheep 
Is little Endymion white with pale sleep: 
The lanes of life's laughter — ah, let us go down 
To the calm of their heart from the thunder of Town. 



MY FATHER'S HOUSE 

Y Father's heart is like a rose 
That in the balmy April blows, 
As tender as a velvet flower 
Between two dawns of sun and shower. 



M 



My Father's smile is like a gleam 

Of golden vapor in a dream, 

A ray that falls around my feet 

To light the road with bloom and sweet. 

My Father's song is good to hear 

As any brook that ripples clear. 

Or marvel of the wildwood note 

That raptures from the redbreast's throat. 

My Father's hand is held to me 
From out the cloud, across the sea, 
As tender as a velvet bloom 
Of love to lead me through the gloom! 

My Father's house is wide and long 
As love's farewell on lips of song, 
And there He bids me come and keep 
The feast of life, the fast of sleep! 

43 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
BLACK SHEEP 

BLACK sheep, black sheep, lost and gone astray, 
Wrecked upon the shaUows in the glory of his way; 
Black sheep, black sheep — turn and let him go, 
Stranded in the alleys with the creatures none would know! 

Black sheep, black sheep, adrift upon the main. 
Battered by the billows and engulfed by every rain; 
Drifting to destruction with the serpents in his hair. 
And his heart a burning prison of the fever of despair! 

Black sheep, black sheep, wandered from the fold 
Of mother arms that held him in the days of hair of gold- 
Mother arms are waiting, be ye blacker than the night. 
To lead ye with their loving to the valleys of the light! 

Black sheep, black sheep, in a world of hate 
Buffeted and baffled by the bitter waves of fate; 
Dreaming of her lost child, yearning late and long, 
A mother's lips are murmuring his name in her song! 

CONFIRMATION 

A BLADE of grass or a stalk of mullein, 
And where are your skeptics then? 
A grain of sand or a wave of ocean, 

And the scoffers flee again. 
A butterfly's wing and a drop of water, 

A maple leaf and the cone 
From a roadside pine confirm man's wonder 
In the things that are God's alone. 

44 



BLINDNESS 



MORNING 

HERE to begin again, to start all over and swing 
Into the circle of do and dare fresh as a robin in spring ! 
Yesterday dead, with its night, shallow and deep of its tears, 
Only a burden laid off in the burial mound of the years! 

Here to begin again, with morning upon the hill; 
Here, from a Httle sleep, to leap with a new-born thrill 
Of hope and glory and song and venture and heart and dream 
Into the splash of the seas of dust laved in the dew and gleam ! 

Here to begin again, night and the past a blur — 
Only the hills, with their bugle call and myriad wings astir! 
Oh, to begin, begin! Give me your hand, and cling! 
Morning and youth and hope, my dear; love, and the bloom 
o' spring! 



BLINDNESS 

WE are blind who go with sight 
Seeing only gloom and night; 
We are blind who look and say: 
''What an ugly world today!" 
We are blind, with all our eyes, 
Who forget that beauty Hes 
Radiant in its veil of gloom 
Waiting for the touch of bloom 
That he brings, who with his heart 
Tears the chrysalis apart! 

45 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
ULTIMA THULE 

THE nectar-sipping gods have gone, 
The breasts they drained are dust, 
And Egypt in her desert sand 

Unto the thighs is thrust; 
Apollo is a golden mist 

And Helen's lips a dream, 
But oh, that morning of the earth 
Is still with dew a-gleam! 

The thunder of the charging steeds 

Before the walls of Troy 
Has died upon the wind of time, 

But Love is still a boy; 
The temples of the sun are deep 

Beneath the crust of Rome; 
But ah, that April of the heart 

When Argus sailed the foam! 

Imperial Antioch is lost, 

'Tis ashen Carthage now. 
And death is on Gomorrah's lips 

And dust on Sodom's brow; 
The eagle of Apulia soars 

The mists of Charon's sea. 
But oh, that bloom of Babylon, 

That breath of Attic glee! 

In death or dust, and over them 
Olympus rises still, 

46 



EVERYDAYNESS 



And he who runs may hear the rune 

Of Pan-pipes on the hill; 
For that was life and that was youth, 

And all that love divines, 
Which still along those roseate deeps 

In dewy dayHght shines ! 



EVERYDAYNESS 

TRYING one's best to be patient with life. 
Bearing the burden and facing the strife; 
Trusting and hoping, and off with a song, 
A mite 'mid the many, a mote in the throng — 
Life with its everydayness, dear. 
Isn't it terrible, isn't it queer! 

Over and over the same old thing, 
Bloom and berry and bird a-wing; 
Love's good-by at the gate, and then 
The arms that welcome us home again — 
Life with its everydayness, sweet, 
Isn't it lovely, and hard to beat! 

Loss and sorrow and toil and rest, 
Dreams of love on a sweetheart breast; 
Nursing, rearing, the fight, the foam. 
The lifelong building to build a home — 
Oh, for the everydayness, love. 
With God and the blue sky up above! 

47 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



MOTHER'S DAY 

WEAR the white rose of the day ;flB 

For the mothers old and gray, ^m 

For the mothers young and sweet — - 

Strew the violets at the feet 
Of the mothers, every one, 
Who have made the world a place 

Where the days in beauty run 
And the years are full of grace. 

A carnation white as snow, 
Wear its blossoms where you go 
On this day that's set apart 
For the centering of the heart 

On the mothers; wear the gleam 
Of a manhood free from guile 

That her life may walk in dream 
Through the country of sweet smile. 

Oh the mothers ! Weave for them 
Bloomy crown and diadem. 
Bind the chaplet o'er them now, 
Kiss in love the wrinkled brow! 

Golden mothers of the land. 
Strew the rose and lift the song 

For the truth that in their hand 
Keeps its finger on the throng. 

Every day a day of thought 

For the good that they have wrought — 

48 



EACH IN HIS PLACE 



Mothers young and mothers old, 
Half the truth has not been told, 

But we know them every year 
Better for the good they do — 

Let the white rose hide the tear; 
Holy mothers, love to you! 



EACH IN HIS PLACE 

EACH in his place, whatever it may be — 
Servants to serve and kings to set men free; 
Some for the heights, the bloom on peaks of bloom; 
Some for the vales where no ray breaks the gloom; 
Whether the humble, or the proud and blest, 
Each in his place, to strive and do his best! 

Each in his place — the bootblack's humble lot 
Gains oftentimes the proud lip's scorn, but not 
That of the wise whose inmost sense declares 
Even the bootblack in life's purpose shares. 
And being the very best bootblack in the land 
Is worth the aim, the heroic aim and grand. 

Each in his place, however small; be true, 
Doing with zeal the thing there is to do. 
Sure that no effort's ever lost to light 
That for its law has fundamental right; 
Be it the king's task, or the clown that sings. 
Or the meek dreamer poised on waxen wings. 



49 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE PURPOSE FINE 

AMID our light a sudden gloom — 
But don't despair! 
Mid all the blight of joy and bloom 

Some purpose there 
Still keeps its swift and keen defense 

Of all our good 
That we may cry dim ages hence 
We understood! 

At height of all we toiled for, dark, 

But don't give up ! 
Our Ararats still have their Ark 

The sea's bright cup 
Shall bear unto the morning shore 

Of peace and rest — 
Some dove bears olive to the door 

Of every breast! 

The triumph, then perhaps the loss — 

But don't repine! 
Behind the burden and the cross 

The purpose fine! 
The riven flesh and then the tomb, 

But ever nigh 
Our deep Gethsemanes of gloom 

The morning sky! 

Through all life ever lived on earth, 
This purpose runs — 

50 



GLOWWORM SHININGINTHE GRASS 

The shadows mingling with the mirth, 

The clouds with suns, 
So, weakling though the spirit be, 

Look up, keep sweet. 
Tomorrow even we may see 

His naked feet! 



GLOWWORM SHINING IN THE GRASS 

GLOWWORM shining in the grass. 
Close where mortal feet must pass, 
Vital part of nature's scheme, 
On nothing and with naught, to gleam; 
Yet, divinely through you glow 
Vast purposes we may not know. 

Being of humble service there, 
Sparkle of some primordial glare; 
Under some footstep — God forbid — 
Crushed and forever after hid, 
Still must the consciousness to you 
Of doing all you could be due. 

Make me, O Father, in my trust. 
As a mxcre glowworm in the dust. 
That with its patience and its sweet 
I may my lamp for passing feet 
Hold as my duty of the night 
To give them my all, if all be light! 

51 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

FATE 

TO never get your deserts, and never come into your own; 
To blow the bubbles and see the last of them broken 
and flown; 
To struggle and strive and hope, and summing it all at the 

end, '-^ 

Count only a mountain of loss, feel sure of not even a friend. 

To never get all you are worth and still make your worth 

the more; 

To go on patient and sweet in defeat as you went before; 

To see less able than you go upward and win success 

Through luck, while your own luck turns, though your value 

be none the less. I 

\ 

To part with most all you held dear, to watch e'en the roses 

fade ' 

From the cheeks that were sweet by your side when you first 
fell in love with a maid; 

To never have failed in a trust but always to fail in reward; 

To be trampled down deep in the dust, yet still keep your 
faith in the Lord. 

I tell you, if fate is this, and you answer it manly and true, 
There's some time a dawn in the east that will rise over 

doubt for you. 
And the less you have won out of life for the more you have 

served and been sweet 
Will that dawn bring the gift of the bloom of the roses of 

life to your feet. > 

52 



IN THE NIGHT 



UNANSWERED 

WHAT makes the little cricket sing 
All day along the lane? 
Has it no sorrow and no grief, 

No trouble and no pain? 
What makes the common world content 

With what the Master gives? 
What makes the insect pour its song 

In joy because it lives? 
Ah, if my heart could answer that 

I'd know, while ages fly, 
Not only how to live, my dear, 

But also how to die! 



IN THE NIGHT 

WE could not hear a single sound, 
No footstep seemed to touch the ground. 
All silent through the night the breeze 
Swayed not the branches of the trees. 
So quiet were the very stars. 
So soft the ripples on the bars, 
That far and wide in all the land 
No sound was heard on any hand. 
And yet when morning broke, we heard 
The trumpet of a sudden bird. 
And Nature cried in accents clear: 
''Why, bless my heart, the spring is here!" 



53 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE SHEPHERD IS UPON THE HILLS 

THE shepherd is upon the hills, 
And with a song of gold 
He plays upon the oaten pipes 

That charmed his flocks of old; 
In simple garb of homespun weave, 

And brown locks blowing free, 
He guards the gates of dew and dawn 
And sings beside the sea! 

Oh, yesterday I heard his voice 

And heard his golden lay, 
As on the sweet, archaic pipes 

He paused awhile to play: 
Perhaps Endymion to the moon, 

Or Orpheus to his dear — 
The song that made Diana swoon 

And Love lean down to hear! 

Beside my ^dndow o'er the street 

I saw the vision pass 
Across the green, delightful hills 

And o'er the cool, green grass; 
The oaten pipe, the listening flock. 

And yonder through the tree 
The cloven earth where in her bloom 

Emerged Eurydice! 

Now, I am neighbor to the desk 

And bondman to the task; 
Nor aught of life but leave to toil 

And joy to live I ask; 

54 



THE ORGAN MONKEY 



But, oh, the shepherd's on the hills, 

And I can hear him play, 
And it is very hard, you know, 

To dream of it and stay! 

To dream of it — to see afar 

That figure on the hills, 
The weaning lambs that gambol by, 

The nereids in the rills; 
The quiet world, the green retreat, 

The oaten pipe — and then, 
A dreamer in the city's heat 

Nailed on the cross of men! 

THE ORGAN MONKEY 

WITH nimble antic, odd grimace. 
The monkey in the market place 
Moves on before the organ's sound. 
Passing his panniken around. 
Over his masters legs and up 
He climbs to empty out his cup. 
The while the motley audience smirks 
At the insensate thought that works 
In brain so small to ape the man 
So far as such a creature can! 
''Quite human," round the whisper drifts, 
And monkey from his perch uplifts 
His eyes to gaze across the frond 
Of curious faces, to respond. 
With easy challenge, that, at least, 
Man sometimes acts much like a beast! 

55 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
LAY HIM ASIDE 

LAY him aside, he is getting too old; 
Faithful and trusty and sound as gold, 
He has served long years, and we know his worth, 
But the young are crowding him off the earth; 
Over his head with a leap they go — 
Lay him aside; he is most too slow! 

Lay him aside; he has served his day, 

And he's earned far more than his meagre pay; 

But others are pushing their way ahead, 

And he's had his turn, and his chance has fled; 

Lay him aside, while the young go up 

With lips to the brim of the victor's cup! 

Lay him aside; he has saved us much, 

And earned us more, and his heart's in touch 

With every interest of ours; he'd give 

His life and all to see us live: 

But the young press on for the highest place, 

So lay him aside; he has lost the race! 

Lay him aside; he is true as steel. 

And his help is earnest and fine and real; 

But he's getting old, and the young hearts burn. 

And they steal his chance, and they block his turn; 

Lay him aside; Don't mind his tears. 

Nor the life he has spent for us all these years! 



56 



1 



OVER AND OVER 



TODAY 

IT means so much, this Httle day, this now, 
Wreathed with the wreath of victory on its brow; 
Crushed with the cross of crimson, or the stain 
Of fruitless battles fought in vain, in vain! 

It means so much, this clustered bloom of time: 
Noble achievement, music, magic rhyme. 
Sorrow, defeat, despair and endless gloom. 
Or shall it be the beauty of bright bloom? 

It means so much, it is so much, to make 
Or mar our destiny. To build or shake 
Our towering temples aimed toward the sun — 
So much, so much can in a day be done! 

OVER AND OVER 

OVER and over and over, life is a day after day; 
Sweeping and dusting and cleaning, taking the heart 
out to play; 
Sewing and mending and patching, round in a ring life goes. 
Till twilight comes with the lily and love leans down with 
a rose. 

Over and over and over, the battle, the bloom, the song. 
The infinite lesson of patience, the toiling and being strong; 
The bubble of hope far gleaming, the light and the lure, and 

then — 
The sewing and mending and patching, the sweeping and 

dusting again! 

57 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

WE MISS THEM SO H 

WE miss them so, ^^i 

The ones that go— ™' 

Try as we may 
Through grief to say: 
"Ah, well, 'tis best, 
He's now at rest!" 
The voice comes broken, 
And when we choke 
The tears back in the throat, behold. 
The heart brims over, many fold! 

We miss them so. 

The loved who go! 

And when we try 

Just not to cry; 

To bravely tread 

Our way alone, 

The loved ones dead, 

The sweet ones flown, 

Rise in the memory and we say: 

"Oh, Father, bring them back today!" 

We miss them so. 

The loved that go! 

Each place they sat. 

Some cloak, some hat, 

Some cup, some trinket, favorite chair — 

Day after day we see them there. 

Or think we do, and think we hear 

58 



TRAVELING HOME 



Loved voices falling soft and dear: 
How can we help it, then but weep 
O'er the dear dust of those who sleep! 

TRAVELING HOME 

1SAW them come over the water, I saw them go down 
through the land. 
Some lonely on feet that were weary; some smiling, with 

hand clasped in hand; 
And where are ttiey going? I questioned; Oh, what do they 

see where they roam, 
That their eyes seem to dwell on a vision? '^Home, home — 
they are traveling home!" 

I saw them come out of the cities, I saw them go over the 

hill; 
I saw little children, old people, swart sons of the forge and 

the mill; 
The 3/oung with the feet of light dancing; the old with a 
yearning for rest, 
I "They are traveling home,'^ said the shadow, "to lie down on 
K the dear mother-breast!" 

I saw them in shadow and sunshine, I saw them at dawn and 

at night 
Go on, and go on, and go over the road to the lilt of delight; 
Diviner than anything hum.an the glow on their faces who 

roam: 
"They are traveling home," cried the shadow; "home, 

home — they are traveling home!" 

59 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE CITY BIRDS 

MY little friends upon the ledge, 
Far flown from country lane and hedge, 
Storm-wanderers on the strange wind-sea, 
With httle bills peeked up at me: 

Hail, beautiful, and frail, and sweet 
Crumb-seekers in the city street! 
Through icy blast and whirling snow 
From sill to sill in song they go. 

Blithe feathered signposts of that love 
Which watches from the blue above 
To guard and guide and safely bring 
Through storm and stress each tender thing : 

Oh, little friends, I, too, am there 
Upon the ledge, beneath His care; 
And, with you, through the storm, I find 
He has been very good and kind! 



OF THE DUST 

I DENY not any dust, 
Since the dead are in its trust! 
That the wind blows unto me 
May be ideality 
Of a loved face lost to time, 
Or a lip that rang with rhyme! 
Why, the ground beneath our feet 
May have been a vision sweet, 

60 



I 



THE LADDER 



Dancing, with her red cheeks ripe, 
To some perished minstrel's pipe! 
E'en this handful in the door 
May have been a troubadour, 
Serenading moon and star 
With his silver-stringed guitar: 
Yea, this very grain that flies 
From the pathway to my eyes, 
Might have been a giant who fell 
In some paleolithic dell. 
Or a soldier, in the flash 
Of the battle's cannon-crash! 
Tender touch and tender tread 
Dust that may be from the dead 
Lips of Httle babes that fleet 
In the whirlwind round your feet! 

THE LADDER 

T^HE rungs by which we climb are rough, 
1 The ladder tops beyond the stars; 
We sometimes cry: ''Enough! enough!" 

We know we'll never cross the bars. 
Yet, suddenly, upon the heart. 

Some deeper aching than our own 
Seems for a moment from some sphere 

Of other trial to our trial flown. 
And then with perfecting of trust 

In ultimate and golden ends, 
We take the rough rungs in our hands 

And lean to lift some weaker friends. 
6i 




SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
ON THE MAIN HIGHWAY 

ANY a man on the main highway 

That you watch with envy and hail with cheers 
Would very much rather, a child at play, 

Be back in the path of the yesteryears — 
The little green path where the clover nods 
And the old worm fences wind and twist, 
And the sumach bends on its slender rods 
And the sea of the spring is an amethyst. 

Many a man whom you see go by 

On the gilded road of a wide renown 
Would rather be back 'neath a soft spring sky 

In the tender dream of a childhood town; 
Would rather be following, barefoot still, 

The little green path to the swimming hole. 
And the bloomy lane to the old sawmill, 

With the lilt of the morn in his heart and soul. 

Many a man whom you watch go up 

The golden stairs of the hall of fame. 
Draining the gilded and sparkling cup. 

Would rather be out where the lilacs flame. 
Would rather be down at the old home place, 

Down in the path of the rose and dew. 
Driving the cows, with a sunburned face. 

And an April light in his eyes of blue. 

The main highway is a gilded lure, 

And the street of fortune and fame is fine; 

But many a heart aches there, for sure, 
For the little green path to the tangled vine; 

62 



A WHISTLE IN THE DARK 

For the little green pathway over the lea, 
And the brook and the meadow, the hill and stream, 

And the far white sails on a silver sea, 

In the old sweet places of childhood dream! 

A WHISTLE IN THE DARK 

THERE'S a whistle in the dark, and I know the lips that 
call 
Are the lips of little fellow walking where the shadows 

crawl, 
Just to keep his courage up and to fill his heart with cheer 
'Gainst the dark that drifts around him and the whispering 
things of fear! 

There's a whistle in the dark sounding sweetly down the dale, 
And a little fellow sounds it, and I know his cheeks are pale, 
And he whistles in the shadows down the roadway of the 

night 
Just to keep a braver spirit till his pathway winds to light! 

There's a whistle in the dark where a negro strays, no doubt. 
By a graveyard where the ghosts lift a voice in hollow shout; 
And a strength is in the song, and a power is in the lay 
To cure the utter loneliness and chase the dread away! 

Let us whistle in the dark — oh, along the vales of night 
Let us fill the heart with hope of the coming of the light, 
Till the ghosts of care shall flee and the phantoms say good- 

by, 

And we walk upon the rose and the sun is in the sky! 



63 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE LOVING LABORER 

DOWN to sowing and to gleaning, back to resting and to 
sleep; 
Back to comfort and beguiling when the dusky shadows 

creep; 
Down to toiling and to trusting — then the little lanes at 

night, 
With the lips that lean for loving with their crimson bloom 

a-light; 
Song and laughter, dance and story, quiet hands and folded 

eyes, 
And the Loving Laborer watching all the night within His 

skies! 
Down to planting and to reaping, down to conquest and to 

crown, 
Then the little lovelights leading to the cot in lane and town; 
Rest and revel, romp and rapture — then a sleep, with heart- 
ache gone. 
While He toils that we may waken in His miracle of dawn! 



GOD'S LAUGHTER 

SOMETIMES when in the sunshine I walk the city street, 
Down by the road of faces and the thunder of swift 
feet, 
I think I hear the sunshine as well as feel its ray — 
The sunshine is God's laughter, and it rings along my way! 

Sometimes when in the glory of the bright beams of the morn 
I find some little corner where the wayside blooms are born, 

64 



OLD DOCTOR CHEERFULNESS 

Around me and above me — in the trees and in the air — 
I hear the ringing laughter of God's sunshine gleaming there ! 

Sometimes when in the sweetness of the lane that leads me 

home 
I look across the verges of the crimson sunset dome, 
I'm sure I hear a whisper winging o'er the meadow-mile 
Of heav'nly love made audible in God's sweet evening smile! 

OLD DOCTOR CHEERFULNESS 

TWENTY drops of sunshine, mix 'em all together. 
Take 'em with a mile or more of bright fresh weather; 
Twenty drops of smiling heart, laughter ringing out — 
Soon we'll have you well enough to up and be about! 

Half a mile of exercise on the bloomy highway. 
With a little sparkling eye lifted to the skyway; 
Forty grains of atmosphere, with a bird song in it — 
Why, you're convalescing, lad; better, every minute! 

Dozen kindly deeds a day, helping some one's trouble 
Break and blow a mile away like an airy bubble; 
Good ! you're getting on so fine soon be time to leave you 
To the lips o' love-of-life waiting to receive you! 

Morning glory plaster, plain, on your rheumatism; 
Little gHmpse of morning gold through love's azure prism — 
Why, you're growing young again ! Say, you're well all over I 
All you need's a buttercup and a field of clover! 

6s 



SWEETHEART LAYS 



SWEETHEART 

SWEETHEART, I am coming where you sing beneath 
the rose 
In Arcady, the beautiful, the fair; 
The Hghts are out in Athens and the play has reached its 
close, 
The wine is very bitter flowing there! 
Sweetheart, I am coming, from the battle and the blight 

To Arcady, the quiet and the sweet; 
The temples are abhorrent and the city moans at night. 
And hearts are burned to cinders in its heat! 

Sweetheart, I am coming to the valleys of our rest 

In Arcady, the garden of the gleam; 
The stones are sharp in Athens and the arrows pierce the 
breast, 

And fame is but a shadow in a dream! 
Sweetheart, I am coming to the sunshine of your face. 

The song of heart's delight and heart's refrain, 
The simple, quiet spirit of the wayside charm and grace, 

With love within a cottage in the lane! 

Sweetheart, I have listened to the siren voice full long, 

The false, the fickle music of the crowd; 
The trumpets die in echo and the hills forget their song, 

And Athens is so busy being proud! 
Sweetheart, I am weary of the hollow, insincere, 

Selfish and self-seeking heart of man; 
I'm coming back to Arcady, to Arcady the dear, 

Beside the reedy river and the perished pipes of Pan! 

69 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Sweetheart, I am coining where you sit with tender trust 

In Arcady, the bloomy and the bright, 
To purge my heart of vanity and cleanse my soul of dust 

And leave the lurid Athens to its night! 
Sweetheart, I am coming where you wait and are content, 

To seek the dewy fountains of the dawn, 
And change this garb of conquest for the white habiliment 

That they who go to Arcady put on! 

Sweetheart, it won't matter to the temples or the town. 

And Athens will go onward just the same 
When I go forth to greet you where the roses flutter down 

Beyond the bitter, burning brand of flame: 
But, ah, the all-revealing, unconcealing sweet of it 

In Arcady together, in the gleam. 
Beside the quiet porches in our youth-returned to sit. 

Blow the bubble, build the castle, dream the dream! 



WITHIN OUR WORLD 

WHETHER there's a finer world — this has got to do ! 
Whether there's a sweeter sky — ours is very blue ! 
Whether there's a better life — let us trust and wait. 
Love is in the lanes of rest, at the sweetheart gate! 

Whether there's a lighter toil — ours is at His will! 
Whether there's a brighter land — this is ours to till! 
Whether there's a kindlier age — here's our time and place. 
Love within the porch of dreams with her light, her grace! 

70 



THE MAGIC FINGER 



THE MAGIC FINGER 

THERE'S something in the way it lays its touch upon 
your head 
That shadows fly away and song and smile are there, instead. 
Some touch, and touch, and touch, and touch, and touch, and 

touch all day. 
But nothing seems to yield before the touch and fly away; 
While others come with gentle love and sympathy and cheer 
And quick as in a magic change the shadows disappear! 

It takes the magic finger, then, with magic touch and spell, 
To heal the aching heart and help the sickly world grow well. 
Some have it, and the moment they come in the room you feel 
The presence of a spiritual grace through all your being steal; 
Some have it, and without one word, but by some mark of 

grace. 
They bring the laughter to your eyes, the sunshine to your 

face. 

Oh, magic finger, gentle touch of balm on lips that burn. 
Love lays you on an aching heart and hearts no longer yearn ; 
Love lays you on a beating head and pain and fever-heat 
Turn to an autumn afternoon in meadows cool and sweet; 
The burden that made all the way seem midnight dark with 

gloom 
You touch, and every path beneath our feet is filled with 

bloom! 



71 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
LOVE'S ENCHANTMENT 

SHE is lilac by the door, 
She is rose beside the gate; 
She is lily in the lane 

Where the lips of laughter wait; 
At her touch the common day 

And the common toil are sweet 
And she turns to bloom o' May 
Dreary alley, roaring street! 

Why, a very little hill. 

And a very little brook. 
Change unto a mountain, still. 

In a wood of Aristook; 
Change unto a sea that lies 

In the autumn twiHght there. 
Like a turquoise from the skies 

Where the gray dunes rise and flare! 

She hath caught the morning dull 

And her lips have brought the sun, 
In a dream-dance beautiful 

Of a crystal dew-web spun; 
She hath found the day a care 

And the tasks of day a pain. 
And her touch hath fallen there. 

Like a peace come back again! 

From a cottage window sill. 
From a step beside the road. 

She hath sent me forth a king 
In whose heart a dream abode; 

72 



LOVE'S ENCHANTMENT 



She hath brought me in the night 

To a hut by magic made 
Of her laughter and her hght 

Like a green room in a glade! 

She hath given me a sword 

Of Excalabar of old; 
She hath changed my pewter mug 

To a tankard of bright gold; 
With her song to say good-by, 

With her smile to say come home, 
She is bloom of April sky 

By a shore of silver foam! 

She hath laughed within the hall, 

She hath whispered o'er the sill, 
And the shadows, one and all, 

They have vanished, grief stood still; 
I am weary, I am worn, 

I have toiled till even-light. 
But she brings the lilac morn 

On her lips of fairy night! 

She hath hung a trellised vine 

At the gates of early dew; 
She hath filled my throat with wine 

Of the spell of heart-be- true; 
On mine eyes her Oberon hand 

Hath distilled me nothing less 
Than that juice from honey land 

Of the love-in-idleness! 

73 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE GOLDEN HOUSE 

LOVE built a little house in the corner of the wood 
Where hearts could eat of light of the morning for their 
food; 
They had the fairy money with which to buy the dream, 
And every beggar at the door received a bowl of gleam. 

It was not built of beryl nor of the onyx stone, 
This little house that love had built all in the wood alone; 
But of the native pine and the birches and the beech. 
And everywhere she went there were berries in her reach. 

It sat along the road where it caught the morning sun. 

And in and out its door little creatures came to run. 

And birds built in the corners where the eaves were mossy 

deep 
And sang the silver twilight to the fairy dells of sleep. 

It wasn't very large and it wasn't very small, 
This little house beside the road that love had built for all; 
And kings came by and paupers and the holy men of zeal, 
And lordly dames and harlots and the shysters and the real. 

The corner of the wood that love built it in was, oh, 
A part of Eden garden in the days of long ago ! 
And so, in all the years it has stood there in the light — 
To see the passing pageant was a merry, merry sight. 

And thus the little path that they started to its door 
Who were the very first to discover it of yore 
Is now a mighty highway where the universe has trod 
The bloody thorns of battle and of beauty up to God. 

74 



THE BUILDING OF THE WORLD 



THE BUILDING OF THE WORLD 

LEAN the hill upon the mountain and the vale upon the 
hill, 
Cleave the rock and dig the channel for the waters of the rill; 
Plant the tree and sow the meadow with the blooms of eyes' 

delight, 
Hang the sun upon the morning and the stars upon the night; 
Pour the waters of the ocean round the verges of the spheres, 
Loose the thunder and the lightning, set the clouds and rain 
the tears! 

Cool the far, internal furnace of the molten globe with dew, 
Fix the heavens with their arches deep and beautifully blue; 
Loose the moon and nether planets in the orbits of the dark 
And the poles upon the center of the zodiacal arc; 
Bring the mollusk from the atom, till the ages, rung by rung, 
Climb the valleys of creation till the perfect world be swung! 

Then bring summer on the south wind and the spring upon 

the breeze, 
With a rose of April weather pouring down the rolling seas; 
Herd the lion with the leopard and the eagle with the lamb, 
Clothe the rock with bloomy verdure and the morning tides 

with calm; 
Charge with crystal all the fountains— till the land, the sky, 

the streams 
Roll in grooves of settled order in creation's dream of dreams! 

Still imperfect? Still unfinished? Yea, the Builder saw 

the flaw. 
Then the gardens of wide wonder and the deserts of wide awe 

75 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Shook with sudden, strange pulsation as a wondrous music 

woke 
And the air upon the billows in a thousand balsams broke, 
And the day and night divided as descended from above. 
Winged with white, the slender-footed, rose-encircled spirit — 

Love! 

Roads from roads in lanes divided, cities clustered street by 

street, 
Hammers swung and anvils sounded, forges flamed and 

sledges beat; 
Hearts responded, husbands labored, whistles sounded, day 

was done, 
Down the pathways thousands hastened till the gates of rose 

were won! 
Crowned and chapleted with beauty — world-created, land 

and foam, 
It is finished, sang the Builder, with the building of the Home ! 



MY LOVE, THERE IS NO LOVE GROWS 

OLD 

MY love, there is no love grows old; 
A thousand years from now 
They'll find still lit the living gold 

On Eros' burning brow. 
That which is ancient as the days. 
So long since it was born, 



76 



MY LOVE, THERE IS NO LOVE GROWS OLD 

Shines through the spirit with the rays 
Of deathless dreams of morn. 

Though Helen's dust is with its kin 

'Neath many a fallen tower. 
The glances of her eyes are in 

The velvet of the flower. 
Though Priam's arm is like a tree 

That withers in the blast, 
His tale of love still sets us free 

From doubts that hold us fast. 

As old as Cheops, and as young 

As yesterday it seems — 
This love that is a mystery swung 

Like pendulums of dream. 
You know him as of Adam's time 

And look to see his staff, 
But, lo, he is a wisp of rhyme, 

A frolic waif of laugh. 

Tomorrow he will not have changed, 

Nor in the changing years — 
He is the spirit that hath ranged 

The Apennines of tears. 
The valleys of the violet joy 

His feet have trodden, too. 
And he is still the same sweet boy 

As when he aimed at you! 



77 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE ROAD TO ARDEN 

IT falls in a twilight moment, when the mill-wheels cease 
their roar; 
A drift and a dream of music, a face in a roseclad door; . 
Away to the forest of Arden, on the road to Arden sweet, 
Where Jacques and the rest will gather and the trees overhead 
will meet: 
Oh, follow, my heart, through the valley, 

O'er meadow and mountain, down 
The road to the wood of Arden, 
From the reek of the dreamless town! 

It shines in a new-moon glory, a little white winding way 
That leads to the Rosalinds waiting at the lilac gates of day; 
The old and young upon it, the weary and faint, the new. 
The pale and the pained, the rugged and fettled and fresh 
as dew: 
Oh, merry the music ringing. 

And the lure of the song, how fine, 
Sweet Arden road to the lifted load 
And the lips that will lean to mine! 

I have watched all day at the ofl&ce the road to the Arden hill, 
I have heard all day its music outsinging the mart and mill; 
And the brothers beside me faltered, and the live who are 

dead heard not, 
For the gray in their lives of struggle and the dreams that 

their hearts forgot: 
Winding away I saw it, 

And the whistles, they blew me there 

78 



THROUGH LOVE TO LIGHT 

On the road to the wood of Arden, 
O'er the hills of the wine of air! 

It will come at a touch of fairy, it will glow when the moon is 

white, 
And down to the road of Arden we will go in the dream of 

light; 
O Mother of Melancholy; O God of the Rest We Earn, 
It will be so sweet when I feel my feet on the road where the 

long lanes turn! 
Ah, merrily unto the forest, 

For the green of its dream, its rest, 
I will go for the sleep to follow 

On the great Earth-Mother's breast! 

THROUGH LOVE TO LIGHT 

THROUGH love to light— ah, in its ray 
With joy they go the love-lit way 
Who dance to sweetness and the dream 
When hounds of twilight chase the gleam. 

Through love to light — ah, in its glow 
The darkness breaks, and inward flow 
Upon the heart's green fields the tides 
Whose sweetening water heals and hides. 

Through love to light — though blind, they see 
At last the sun rise splendidly. 
As unto Adam's primal gloom, 
Eve brought the genesis of bloom. 

79 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
LOVE, THE LIVING BEAUTY 

LOVE is living beauty, 
And all of life is dead 
That is not on its honey 

And on its spirit fed. 
Love in song is singing, 

Love in art is life, 
The beacon and the burning, 
The scorning and the strife. 

Love is living beauty, 

The sunbeam and the clod 
Are not until it burneth, 

It is the flame of God. 
The picture and the problem, 

The music and the tower 
Are not until it wakens. 

It is the flower of flower. 

Love is living beauty, 

Opaque the songless night 
Till love dawns down the ages 

In light of splendid light. 
Truth takes it to the battle, 

Joy takes it to the dance; 
It is of one the music, 

It is of one the lance. 



80 



ELATION 

ELATION 

THE bright, blue day, how much it means, 
How much it does and brings; 
The fine faith surging through the blood, 

The feet on lightheart wings! 
The windy flare of autumn hills, 

The morns of silver rime — 
Thank God for youth that lasts through life 
And love that outlasts time! 

Lift up, O heart, and feel the joy. 

The bloom within, when dies 
Along the faded fields the bloom 

Rained down from April skies! 
Sing out, O lips, and shout, O soul. 

The year is in its prime — 
Thank God for youth that lasts through life 

And love that outlasts time! 

Yea, when the windy hill I tread, 

Or in the fine wood walk, 
I hear the dreams that once were dead 

Rise from the dead and talk! 
With air so blue and skies such hue, 

Were all the world a crime — 
Thank God for youth that lasts through life 

And love that outlasts time! 



8i 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE INNER SIGHT 

IT is not that the world is sweet, 
Nor that the skies are blue, 
It is not roses at our feet, 

Nor rose-breath of the dew; 
It is not morning on the hills, 

Nor mist, nor bloom-brimmed air, 
But love that from her azure spills 
Delights for us to share! 

It is not beauty that we see. 

Nor rapture that we feel 
When God confronts us with a tree 

Or meads their bloom reveal; 
The mystery reigning round us now 

Like dew from violets blown 
Is only love that tips our brow 

With ointments of her own! 

Here in the city where the roar 
Of traffic and its dust 

Teach us how alien and how poor 
Must be life's sternest "must," 

Sudden a clear drop from the sun, 
A cool breath from a gleam, 

Down the deep, brick-walled valleys run- 
Love's memory out of dream! 

Ah, momentary, brief, but sweet, 
In meadow lands of light, 

82 



IN ARCADY 



Or in walled way or lurid street- 
That touch of inner sight! 

It is not roses that we smell, 
It is not stars we see, 

But love that in her faery spell 
Turns us to ecstasy! 



IN ARCADY 

THE skies are blue in Arcady, 
Though clouds be gray in Rome; 
The blooms are bright in Arcady — 
Come home, my love, come home! 

Across the world a weary way 

We wander and we sigh 
For heavens that in their cheery way 

Within our dooryard lie! 

The skies are blue, the blooms are bright, 

The roses smile, O love. 
And there are stars to shed gold light 

In thy dear eyes above! 

Farewell to Rome, it is not there, 

The thing for which we long. 
But in this life of human care, 

Of simple joy and song! 



83 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
DECEMBER SONG 

THOUGH love may bring me April 
And joy should bring me May, 
A warm hearth in December, 

Is not that well-a-day? 
Though laughter bear me blossoms 

And music makes me spring, 
Ah, fireplace of December, 
*Tis sweet to hear thee sing! 

Come, roaring night of winter; 

Come, hail and wind and sleet; 
The violet's in the valley. 

The bloom of dream is sweet; 
Shake, shake the cottage timbers; 

Beat, flood, against the pane, 
Sing-ho for fender journeys 

To heart of primrose lane! 

Had I the spirit's choosing. 

Had I the will to say, 
I do not know what April, 

I do not know what May 
I'd take for wild December — 

For love hath still its spring 
In hearts that dare remember 

And souls that dare to sing! 



84 



THE SMILE OF A WOMAN 



And, better love's December, 

Ah, better love that knows 
The gray dusk of the ember, 

The white ash of the rose! 
For May-love hath true laughter, 

And June-love hath sweet song, 
But old love lives hereafter. 

And mellow love lasts long! 



THE SMILE OF A WOMAN 

THE smile of a woman — it brings back the sun 
When shadows drift down and the dayhght is done ! 
The smile of a woman — it lifts and it leads 
The heart that is heavy, the spirit that bleeds! 
The smile of a woman in worlds that are dight 
With garments of winter, wind-driven and white. 
Dawns down the dark valleys and over the hills 
Till spring laughs again on the lips of the rills. 
And summer's soft morning comes back to the land 
With a rose in its hair and a bloom in its hand ! 
The smile of a woman — it brings to the earth 
The music of morn on the red lips of mirth. 
The hope and the joy and the dreaming of rest 
Where Love holds a little one's face on her breast! 



8s 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE AGE OF LOVE 

YOUTH is love's young morning, youth its golden prime; 
Young love dreams of roses in an olden time, 
Long ere joy had perished, long ere pain had birth, 
In a fresh, sweet April of the antique earth. 

Middle-aged love ripens slowly unto flower, 
Dallying with the roses, dreaming in a bower; 
And, if unrequited, broken vow or trust. 
Dead and dumb its blossoms wither in the dust. 

Old love lives in shadows, old love dreams in tears, 
Half of it but memories of the other years: 
Then, there's only one love — why this idle rhyme? — 
For love is young forever with a youth outlasting time! 



86 



LITTLE SAINT CHILD 



LITTLE SAINT CHILD 

A WAYSIDE cross to her I raise 
And by it leave my beam, 
A little candle of the days 

Of innocence and dream. 
Ah, hoHest of holiness, 

Before this humble shrine 
I bow unto the loveliness 
Of purity like thine! 

Saint child, my patron and my friend, 

On every road I know. 
Help me to light unto the end 
Thy candles as I go. 

I know not whether angels come. 

As some were wont to say. 
Or whether sainted lips still dumb 

Like ghosts beside us pray. 
But saints, I know, will ever be 

On this earth while Saint Child 
Comes in the twilight to my knee 
With song and laughter wild. 

Saint child, let others choose at will, 

My patron is my sweet 
Who lieth in my lap full still 
Where dusk and dreaming meet. 

When from the ardor of the fight 
I come with weary soul; 

89 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

It is the flickering of her light 

That saves and keeps me whole. 
Amid the roaring of the fray, 

The heartache and the care, 
I am anointed for the day 
Because Saint Child is there. 
In valleys of the kindly earth, 
On hills of storm and strife. 
Her white cross leadeth us to mirth 
Through pilgrimage of life. 

By every stern and stately tree 

In forest or on road, 
Oh, let me raise a shrine to thee, 

That all who bear their load 
May cast their burden for a while 

By every shrine I've lit 
And at the coming of your smile 
Kneel down and worship it! 

Kneel down in reverence as to one 

Whose pure soul maketh us 
In this sweet worship justified 
And not idolatrous. 

THE CITY OF CHILDHOOD 

IF ever I tire, beloved, of the care and toil and beating 
Of wings on the air that offers no resonant motion of flight; 
If ever I weary of waiting through years that engulf and are 
fleeting, 
The bloom of the hopes that perish in a breath 'twixt the 
dawn and the night. 
90 



THE CITY OF CHILDHOOD 

If ever I answer "I cannot" to the call of life's labor and 
planning, 
And hands shall falter that fashion the dreams I have built 
for you; 
Before I have passed to the shadow and dread of defeat's 
unmanning, 
One day, one dream, one endeavor with God in the fields 
of blue ! 

One day for a dream together and no one to offer pity; 

Only a wall of world and a green earth for our feet; 
Where we shall build of love, and only of love, a city 

Of childhood confidence and the make-believes that were 
sweet! 

Only a wall of world and a quiet place for a palace, 

Airy as those we built in old blown bubbles of dream, 

Where, children of childhood cities, with lips to the charm-ed 
chalice. 
We built from winds of wonder the airy castles of gleam ! 

If ever I tire of weaving the shuttles that click and clatter, 
Beside the looms that tremble in hearts that cannot be still; 

It will not grieve nor wound and it will not seem to matter, 
If only I gain my hour with you and the field and hill! 

If only the dusk forsake me, and the wind of the four seas, 
sleeping. 
Comes with a breath of bloom from summers of old, old 
years; 

91 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



From out my heart and life and the dark, dank chambers 
sweeping 
The moth and the dust and stain of the raining of bitter 
tears! 

Only a flash of garden, and field and a wall between |j| 

Our hour and the streets of thunder that sink in the flame 

and die, ^^ 

Till we build the childhood city of pearl and tourmahne, " 
And the dream of a childhood heart in a world of April 
sky! 

THE BACHELOR'S CHILD 

HE tosses her above his head, 
He romps until his face is red, 
He holds her arm's length just to see 
The wonder of her witchery; 
He talks in language soft and slow 
That only httle babies know, 
He pauses now and then to gaze 
Far off as if 'twere in a maze, 
And then with sudden sigh and start 
He presses her unto his heart. 

He sits her highness on his knees 
And hums her nursery melodies, 
He shakes her rattle, jingles bells. 
And, oh, such wondrous stories tells; 



92 



THE BACHELOR'S CHILD 

He lifts her little face to lay 
Its softness on his own, and play 
Her dimples were the deeps wherein 
A thousand drops of dew had been 
And with his lips upon the brink 
He'd lean to them to kiss and drink. 

He lets her sink upon his breast, 
He sings her little lays of rest, 
And when her little eyes are closed 
And all her baby grace reposed. 
He sits beside her little cot 
Thinking of things so long forgot, 
So far adown the long ago 
Wherefrom the tender echoes flow 
Of songs he heard, of gay love-rhyme, 
On lips whose roses fade betime. 

Be still — the shadows fill his room! 
A wrinkled, lonely bachelor's doom 
To yearn for things that passed him by, 
To hold the memory of a sigh. 
To glimpse the shadow of a face 
Once sunbright with its girlish grace. 
To toss in play and sing to sleep — 
When all the lonely shadows creep 
And o'er his heart a figure gleams — 
The little baby of his dreams! 



93 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE BEAUTIFUL VISION OF LITTLE TOT 

IF I could have what I now have not, 
Give me, O Father, like Little Tot, 
The childhood vision, the fairy sight 
That looks through lenses of magical light, 
To beautiful glory of worlds like those 
She sees when she perches a-tippytoes 
On the hills of spring or the summer bowers 
Mid the lavender pageants of purple hours! 

The beautiful vision of Little Tot — 

I sigh for that when I have it not, 

For it takes her up when the spring comes by 

To the primrose path of the morning sky, 

And it leads her forth when the summer smiles 

To the beautiful morning-glory miles, 

And the buttercup lanes, 

Mid the old refrains 

Of the glad, new, jubilant, joyous thrill 

In creek and hill 

Of the sweet-voiced rill 

Playing its music on silver stops 

Of the lute where Ariel childhood hops 

And skips and jumps like a katydid 

In the far green silences, singing, hid. 

The beautiful vision of Tot, my child. 
Why, how could a heart be aught but wild 



94 



THE BEAUTIFUL VISION OF LITTLE TOT 

When over the autumn hills she sees, 
Not wind and cold and the leafless trees, 
But troops of purple and crimson things, 
With maple bonnets and sumac wings, 
And knights en-horse 
On a golden field 

Of the very cloth-of-gold, of course, 
With armor on and gleaming shield, 
And queens come down, with one in gray 
Who on a purple bier they lay, 
And she's a dream that died in May 
That love to Tot revealed. 

If I could have, as I said before. 

The things I've had but now have not, 

I'd choose the dreams that are no more — 

The beautiful vision of Little Tot, 

Whose bubbles break from the pipe and soar, 

And sink and rise, 

Green fields and skies 

And fairy cities amid them glowing, 

Even in winter, with all its blowing — 

For then more beautiful is her sight 

Than even in spring, with its April light; 

For then, if ever, the streets are stars. 

And lovely windows, and candy jars, 

And cakes and raisins, and dolls, and she 

Is a glorious bird in a Christmas tree! 



95 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
BOY ETERNAL 

We were, fair Queen, 
Two lads that thought there was no more behind. 
But such a day tomorrow as today, 
And to be boy eternal. — The Winter's Tale. 

WHERE is now that magic spell? 
Brothers, have ye still the dew 
Whereupon it once befell 

Boy eternal dwelt in you? 
Yesterday hath had its gleam, 

Long Ago is but a sleep; 
Comrades, do we dream the dream 
Of the rose of youth-for-keep? 

Turn the wheel and turn again. 

Lift the veil and blow the dust; 
Are we boys or are we men, 

Are we doubt or are we trust? 
Is tomorrow a today 

Of the lightheart, of the free, 
Bloomy in a breath of May, 

Blithe beside a silver sea? 



Crack the crust and dig ye down 
Through the gray rind of the heart — 

Here's the road to Boyhood Town, 
Where the days of dreaming art! 

Pike it with me, lad or sage, I 

Comrade of the whistling lip — 

'' i 



BOY ETERNAL 



He is king who laughs at age; 
Here is April, have a sip! 

Now, remember, we are child; 

Life was but a nightmare, so. 
With the heart of youth a-wild. 

Unto barefoot land we go! 
There has been no grown-up time, 

There has been no grief to feel; 
We are June, with Hps of rhyme, 

Dancing in a dewdrop reel! 

Fie upon your backward peep! 

Life was but a ghost of toil — 
Here we are in fairy sleep. 

Children of the vernal soil! 
Have no care for thoughts that bide, 

Thews that ache or bones that crack- 
Youth is on the silver tide 

Floating unto child-come-back! 

Leave it, leave the spindle's roar, 

Temple's lure and market's lust; 
Boy is boy forevermore. 

Rosy in a web of dust! 
We have never left it, friends, 

Boyhood stands and we are still — 
Lighthearts at a landing's end. 

Youngsters on a red clay hill! 

Something creeps to me at night, 
Quirk of side at end of day; 

97 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

There a strand blows in the light 

Some might call a strand of gray ; 
Don't believe it! Nonsense, sweet! 

I am in a skirt of plaid: 
Boyhood, on its whirling feet; 

Laughter, on the lips of lad! 

A CROWN OF CHILDHOOD 

WHEN the season of the green leaf comes again. 
With its clean rebirth of beauty and its rain; 
When the bloom is on the apple, and they say 
It is happy for the crowning o' the May; 
Then I wander, as I wandered years agone. 
To a vision and a glory on the lawn, 
Where they sate her on a chair. 
With the roses in her hair, 
And her beauty broke as beauty breaks in dawn! 

Like a smile upon the pure face of a boy 

When the heart of him is full of life's clean joy, 

Glows the pageant of lost youth along the land 

Where we danced, as comrades dance, with hand in hand. 

And the thrushes sang around us, and the locusts cast their 

seed. 
And we rode the lists of tourney on our ponies cap-a-pied, 

And we brought her woven zone 

Of white daisies for her throne, 
And we crowned her Queen of May Day in the Land of 
Golden Deed! 

98 



A CROWN OF CHILDHOOD 

When the woods are full of whispers in the dusk, 
And the wild magnolia shakes around its musk, 
Through the ancient boxwood hedges, dark and tall, 
And around the gravels walks of Holly Hall 
A child pageant of old beauty and old bloom 
Strikes th^ light of lovely lances through the gloom, 

And a lane of white light follows 

Where the children through the hollows 
Lead the child-queen to her scepter and her plume! 

The winding river haunts me as of old. 
And the marshes, with their mallows pink and gold, 
And the deep, sweet C3^ress places. 
Full of haunting, phantom faces, 
And the cool, deep wimpling eddies, whirhng dim 
Where we leaped, wild brown-skinned youngsters, for a 
swim. 

Or beside the runnel's swish 

All the long day tried for fish — 
Little childhoods in a childworld of the purple seraphim! 

When the hylas on the swampsides croak and sing, 
And the old effulgence happens, and 'tis spring, 
I am yonder, I am yonder, where they came 
To celebrate May morning with wild game. 
And to crown her, crown the fair one and the mild. 
With the bloom of fifth-month beauty for a child; 

And it all comes back to me. 

With its laughter and its glee, 
When the season of the green leaf sets me wild! 



99 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC 

AT the battle of the Baltic we were two, we were two, 
A little old, old fellow and a lad of derring-do: 
The snaredrums beat to battle 
With a rattle, rattle, rattle. 
With a rumble and a grumble 
And a thrumble, thrumble, thrumble — 
And then the ships were ready, and they set to work with 

glee, 
At the battle of the Baltic on the waves of rainbarrel sea: 
We were at the fight together. 

In the days of derring-do, 
With our hearts as light as feather. 
Skies as bright as April blue! 

At the battle of the Baltic came the noble ships in hne. 
And some were made of shingle and some were chips of pine: 
The trumpets raised a rumpus 
With their grumpus, grumpus, grumpus. 
With their crying and their sighing 
And the groaning of the dying — 
Then the httle decks were bloody and the Httle ships went 

down 
In the whirl of rainbarrel waters by the shores of Boyhood 
Town: 
We were at the fight together. 

You with eyes of lad ashine. 
And the gray of winter weather 
In these fading eyes of mine! 



lOO 



i 



REVERSALS 



I 



At the battle of the Baltic you were Admiral of the Rear, 
And I was at the window looking down upon you, dear: 

Came the stately flagship soaring, 

Came the guns of war a-roaring. 

And the rattle, rattle, rattle 

Of the drums that beat to battle: 
Of the drums that beat to battle on that day you played with 

me, 
A little lightheart fellow by the waves of rainbarrel sea: 

We were at the fight together, 
And the shingle ships were fine, 

And our hearts were light as feather 
When the shingle whipped the pine! 



REVERSALS 

IN boyhood's day we longed to be 
Grown up and faring forth to see 
The world of wonder and delight 
Where men with men life's battle fight. 
But, after all, it was not much; 
And how we hunger, now, to clutch 
The flying phantom, fading gleam. 
That takes us back to boyhood's dream! 



lOI 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

BOYHOOD TOWN 

KIND God, look down on Boyhood Town and keep it 
green forever, 
The long main street, with shade trees sweet, the wharf 

and the dreaming river! 
Oh, lead us there when bowed with care to hear its childhood 

story, 
Its song and speech of love that teach the light of love and 

glory! 
Ah, lead us down to Boyhood Town, when we are old and 

weary, 
To taste and know the golden glow of spirits fresh and cheery! 

Look down, we pray, on all that play in childhood's bloomy 
valley; 

Keep sweet the street where little feet of youth and gladness 
rally; 

Keep fair the place with pristine grace, that in our gray 
December 

We may be led with blithesome tread to love's undying 
ember! 

Kind God, look down on Boyhood Town and keep its soft 

lights gleaming ^jj^ 

In gardens fair that blossom there along loved paths of dream- 
ing! 

Look down, look down on Boyhood Town — for we are fain 

to follow 
The homeward way some well-a-day when all the world 

grows hollow! 

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THE PIRATE 



Guard, Thou, and keep its yards that sleep along the old 

main highway, 
Its lanes that wend where meadows end in Bloom-o'-Child- 

hood b3rway! 
With all its gleams, its Joyful dreams, keep it, dear God, 

forever. 
Its shade trees sweet that Hne the street, the wharf and the 

dreaming river! 

THE PIRATE 

I WAS once a pirate with a deep, dark cave, 
Where I kept my treasure by the sweet, sweet wave; 
I was once a rover on the wild sea foam — 
Yet never have I wandered from the gates of home! 

I was once a pirate with a banner black and gold. 
With crossbones on the pennant and a heart in danger bold; 
I was once a voyager of the far, uncharted seas — 
Asleep beside the roses of the honey-hiving bees! 

I was once a pirate with an island where I kept 
The treasures of my dreaming that I captured as I slept; 
I was once a sailor with a cutlass in my mouth — 
Upon the seas of daisy in the meadows of the South! 

Ah, bring me back the dreaming of the little child again. 
That I may dwell no longer 'mid the babbling tongues of 

men; 
That I may be a pirate with a deep, dark cave — 
Beside the sea of fancy and the sweet, sweet wave! 

103 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
TWO DUSTY SHOES 

TWO dusty shoes beside his chair, 
He kicked them off and laid them there; 
Two dusty shoes that brought him through 
The orchards of the grass and dew, 
And miles of lane where blossoms meet 
And squares of alley and of street, 
And deeps and dells and dreams of play — 
And now he's tired, and there they lay! 

Two dusty shoes, so shaped and worn 
To fit his little feet of morn: 
A crease in this, a ridge 'cross that, 
A heel worn off, a sole most flat, 
A string just held by merest thread. 
And he was weary, and he lies — 
Thrown down upon his little bed — 
With dreams of childhood in his eyes. 

Two dusty shoes — ah, little friend. 
How lovingly o'er them we bend. 
And pick them up and mark how bold 
They hold the shape and form and mold 
Of toe and heel and instep, too. 
These shoes that brought him through the dew 
And grass and dust and bloom all day. 
From home to school, and out to play! 

Two dusty shoes beside his chair. 
And in the twiUght bending there 

104 



Jc= 



THE NIGHTNOISE 



A mother in love's silent prayer: 

A mother with those shoes clasped tight 

Unto her bosom's bloom of white, 

To ask God's blessing and His care 

Upon the little lad that hes 

With childhood's dreams upon his eyes! 

Two dusty shoes, two httle feet 

That romped the lane and romped the street. 

Two Httle shoes a mother's tears 

Have rained on through the dust of years — 

Because two Httle feet are stiU 

Along the lane and o'er the hiU 

Where evermore around them lies 

The golden dust of Paradise! 

THE NIGHTNOISE 

THE little nightnoise that you hear 
When you go up to bed, my dear, 
Is nothing that should cause affright 
To Little Child alone at night. 

I know just how it fiUs the room 
Like roses velveting to bloom, 
And sometimes on the window seems 
To patter Hke the feet of dreams. 

Don't mind; the nightnoise does not stay, 
But long and long before 'tis day 
Upon the bed by you 'twill creep 
And fold its Httle wings in sleep. 

105 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE HOLY STAIRS 

I HOLD in fancy, I keep in dream 
A stairway leading from gloom to gleam, 
A wide, white, slanting and starwise way 
That leans from earth and its vales of gray 
Through blue, blue deeps, where the souls pass by 
Of little children that climb the sky! 

I see it ever before my sight. 

That holy stairs, with its figures white. 

Golden sandaled and soft of wdng 

As the first frail snowdrop found in spring; 

Climbing, climbing the stairways seven 

To the four gold bars and the gates of heaven ! 

Over the meadows and out of town 

I dream they come with the wings of down; 

The voice of the sea and the wind and the beam 

Of the golden sun on the shores of dream 

Being a music, a light, a glow, 

For those on the holy stairs that go! 

By bloom of meadow or wildwood bough, 

Here is the stairway starting now: 

Holy, holy, ye hosts of light, 

Take me, too, from my deeps of night — 

A little child on the stairs that lean 

To the pastures new and the fields of green! 

Holy, holy, I dream they climb 

In the seven-year sweet of their childhood- time: 

io6 



THE CHARGE OF THE NIGHT BRIGADE 

Noiseless, softly, except afar 

As they pass the gates where the seraphim are, 

A lily laughs, and a rose makes room 

On her velvet branch for another bloom! 



THE CHARGE OF THE NIGHT BRIGADE 

NO bugle to call them, no armor to glow, 
No sheen of the battle fray; 
No beating of drums for their marching feet 

To step to by the way; 
No flaunting banners or streamers red. 

No marshal to give command. 
But the charge of the Night Brigade, ah me, 
You must see it to understand! 

Five white-robed figures the roll call shows, 

Five rogues in this army fair. 
With eyes that are full of the laughing light 

And lips that are rosy rare; 
From the bedroom door with a mighty rush, 

Down banisters one and all, 
They sweep in a charge that none could dare 

To meet without appall. 

From top to bottom, with volleys of mirth. 

On, on the chargers come, 
And I know the enemy, though they sound 

No signal trumpet or drum; 
107 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

I know the stir of the pink, bare feet, 

I know their ringing shout, 
And I wait till they swing through the open door 

With the ring of their merry rout. 

The charge of the Night Brigade, full sweet 

Is the sound of the merry din. 
And I lay my arms at their little feet. 

Surrender my heart within; 
For they come, the foemen of friendship rare, 

Neither to wreck nor stay. 
But to kiss good-night and to hug me tight 

As they go on the dreamland way. 

White-robed revelers, soldiers true 

In the warfare of love and right. 
No field of battle in all the world 

Hath borne such a wondrous sight. 
As the merry army that step by step. 

With rush and swing and shout, 
Pours down from the bedroom rendezvous 

To the walls of a heart's redoubt! 

No bugle to blow to the fields of strife. 

No marshal to give command. 
No drums to beat to the clash of swords, 

No flashing of cannon grand; 
But the charge of the Night Brigade, ah me, 

What a legion of wonder this. 
To move to the music of pattering feet 

And capture a good-night kiss! 
io6 



HIS MOTHER 



HIS MOTHER 

/Wl Y muvver has been awful bad today, 
i V 1 Made me sit here and wouldn't let me play; 
Just nothin' doin' but old story books, 
And "You behave," and ugly, crosspatch looks: 
When she comes by I'm not a-goin' to stir. 
An' never, never goin' to speak to her! 

She says I'm naughty, but it's her that's bad; 
If I's a muvver it would make me glad 
To have a boy be full of fun sometimes 
An' tease his sister when she's sayin' rhymes. 
An' pull her hair an' hide her dolls that way 
When she's a-trying to 'have herself an' play! 

I'll make her sorry when she comes tonight 
To tuck me in an' fix the London light; 
For I won't hug her, an' I know she'll m'iss 
My arm around her and my Httle kiss; 
But she's been naughty, an' I'm goin' to be 
As mad to her as she is mad to me! 

Oh, laws, I'm hungry! but she doesn't care; 
Just keeps me sittin' on this old hard chair; 
Won't let me chase the kitten any more. 
Nor lean 'way over to see out the door: 
I said a bad word, but she didn't hear. 
Or else she'd come and box me on the ear! 

Sister just now came in and got some bread, 
With jelly on it! Wisht 'at I was dead! 

109 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

I bet she'd soon be sorry then, an' say: 
"Why didn't I let my little darling play!" 
All right, Miss Muwer, soon as you're at rest 
Tonight I'm goin' to run away out West! 

I'm goin' to be an Indian, yes, I am, 
An' then your "nerves" will have a little "calm," 
An' sister won't be bellerin' round the house 
Because I chased her 'ith a teensy mouse: 
You won't have me to bother with again, 
For I'm a-goin' to join the circus men! 

Oh, my, I'm sleepy! Here she's comin' now, 
To smoothe my hair and kiss my little brow: 
She's got an orange, an' she says it's mine, 
An' I'm a-speakin' to her! Ain't it fine 
To have your muwer kiss you o'er and o'er 
An' make you promise not to tease no more! 



I 



no 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 



THE LITTLE CHILDREN 

ARE all the little children in Thy arms, O Lord, tonight, 
Safe from the roaring battle and the thunder of the 
fight? 
Are all the little children tucked away until the morn 
Beyond the bitter trouble, and the conflict, and the scorn?, 
For if they are, God rest us, 

We'll be happy every one, 
That they are on Thy bosom 

Whom He loved so much, Thy Son! 

Are all the little children cuddled up upon Thy breast? 
To dream the starry night away in bloomy fields of rest? 
Are all the little children safely in from romp and play. 
With loved arms clasped around them as they kneel at night 
to pray? 

Oh, if they are, we're happy, 

And we'll lie ourselves to dream 
With faith's great temple o'er us. 
And the lights of love agleam! 

Are all the little children 'neath the shelter of Thy wing, 
Oh Lord of all the children in the rosy lanes of spring? 
Are all the little children kissed and comforted tonight 
Beyond the darkling demons of the factions and the fight? 
Then, we at last may follow, 

And be happy, and be sure 
Of strength to toil and love them. 
And to suffer and endure! 



Ill 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL 

LITTLE schoolgirl, here you are, 
Pigtails tied with bow and star; 
Little schoolgirl, there you trip 
In your dainty gingham slip, 
Apron ruffled, pockets wide. 
And a lunchbox at your side: 
Little schoolgirl, well-a-day, 
In the lily-land of play! 

Little schoolgirl, there you go, 

Hesitant, and sad and slow; 

Bells are ringing, and you heed 

But reluctantly, indeed; 

For the summer has been sweet, 

And the dance is in your feet: 
Little schoolgirl, never mind. 
Time is swift and youth is blind! 

Little schoolgirl, though we seem 
Old, and old, and old as dream, 
Here we go from life to life 
To the school of stress and strife, 
Learning something every day 
From the things that turn us gray: 
Little schoolgirl, no one's wise 
Till he's suffered and he dies! 



112 



THE CHRISTMAS SPELL 



THE CHRISTMAS SPELL 

APRIL has happened to me, 
With its lilacky mornings of glee; 
A sunburst of May 
Has been lost on the way 
And is sitting up there in a tree. 

'Tis a Christmas tree, and I feel 

As a Httle child wanting to kneel 

Beneath its green bough 

With a little playhouse 

And soldiers one fancies are real. 

Paradise burns in my heart; 

It touches and makes me a part 

Of the tinsel adorning 

The streets of the morning 

And the little toy drum and the cart. 

I've caught something funny, I know, 
That bubbles above and below; 
A wonderful feeling 
Like joy through me steahng. 
And roses have started to grow! 



113 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE MARCH OF THE MUCH BELOVED 

THE bugle sounds and the troops fall in and the regiments 
pass by, 
The little, lightheart soldier lad, the lass with gleaming eye; 
In nightgowns white, with bare pink toes, and lips of love- 
in-spring, 
Around the room and through the hall they move with arms 
a-swing: 

The march of the much beloved, 

To bedtime lands of dream, 
When in the wide and starry skies 
The silver poppies gleam! 

Let Us Pretend and Make Believe, and little Dimpled Chin, 
Away they go at evenglow to trumpet notes of tin. 
To drumbeat of the heart of joy and banners of the blue 
That wave above the little ranks of tender-heart and true : 
The march of the much beloved, 

To bedtime's dreamy air, 
Away they pass, sweet lad and lass, 
And baby Golden Hair! 

White-robed and phantom-frail as blooms in gardens of 

delight, 
My brave brigades are moving by on marches of the night, 
Sans sword or spear or bayonet, O soldiers of my love. 
That move to chambers of sweet peace and tents of dream 

and dove: 



114 



THE LAMPLIGHTER 



The march of the much beloved, 
To laughter's lure they swing, 

Dear regiments with arms of rose 
Beneath the flags of spring! 



THE LAMPLIGHTER 

1HAVE never seen him go, 
Mighty in the even 'glow; 
I have never seen him rise 
Far into the golden skies, 
With a taper burning bright 
In the gathering dusk of night — 
But we gaze, and there they are, 
Gleaming brightly, every star! 
When the shadows close the day. 
Like a vision, gaunt and gray. 
From the sea and o'er the hill 
He goes by, serene and still. 
All is dusk and calm and dark 
Till he lifts his giant spark. 
Then the stars come into view, 
Burning golden in the blue! 



115 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
A GLORY I MAY KEEP 

I HAVE a glory I may keep, 
I have a gladness will not die — 
A dream of childhood when the sleep 
Of childhood visions filled my eye. 
Though bugles call where battle burns, 

And trumpets sound the charge of strife, 
Back to the child the memory turns, 
And hearts live o'er the golden life. 

I have a glory that will last 

When drums and flags are dust, 
When battles of the world have past 

And crowns of gold are rust — 
The light of joy from other days. 

The bloom of fancies fair. 
When morning on her golden ways 

Kissed them and set them there. 

I have a glory none may steal. 

Nor time nor grief destroy — 
The quickening pulse that makes me feel 

The heartbeat of the boy. 
It is not as the rose that fades. 

Nor as the Hght that dies 
When twiHght veils the slumbering glades 

And clouds obscure the skies. 

It is an everblooming rose. 
An everlasting gleam, 

ii6 



COUNTING HI-SPY 



Bright with the fairy fire that glows 
Through childhood's golden dream — 

A glory of the thought of youth, 
More wonderful each day, 

Eternal as undying truth 
And beautiful as May. 

COUNTING Hl-SPY 

/NTRY, minfry, cutry-corn, 
Apple seed and briar thorn; 
Briar J briar, limberlock, 
Three geese in a flock; 
One flew east and one flew west. 
One flew over the cuckooes nest! 

Pinch me, shake me, do I dream? 
Oh, the echo: oh, the gleam! 
There they go with laugh and shout, 
Hi-spy children counting out! 
In try, mintry — hi-pon-tus: 
Shadows, shadows over us. 
Lift again thy darkling wing 
From life's vision of lost spring! 
I can see them, I can hear 
All their rapture ringing clear! 

Pinch me, shake me, wake me up, 
Lift me to the rose's cup 
Till I sip the fairy brew 

117 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



Of the apple-bloom of dew; 
Till I shed my years like cloak 
Of the bark and leaf of oak, 
And go down to dance and gleam 
In that circle of child-dream! 
Hark, O heart of rust and gray, 
To that song of child-at-play: 



Intry, mintry, cutry-corn, 
Apple seed and briar thorn ^ 
Briar, briar, limberlock. 
Three geese in a flock; 
One flew east and one flew west, 
One flew over the cuckooes nest! 

THE LITTLE ONE 

THE Httle one leads the leaders, 
And the old truth lives again. 
That faith is the food of children, 
And they are the fathers of men! 
The little one mounts the morning. 

And after the little one climb 
The sons of the serving masters 
In the multiple tides of time! 

The little one sees more wonders 
In a blossom beside the path 

Than Graybeard sees in an eon 
Of fuss and fuming and wrath; 

ii8 



THE LITTLE ONE 



And what are the swords of system, 
And what are the tests of toil, 

By the cups of a full-bloomed marvel 
The little one lifts from the soil! 

Confounders of age-old doctrine, 

Confuters of age-deep night, 
The little one lifts us a lily, 

And love is the bringer of light! 
I stand chagrined of my darkness, 

Of ignorance rank and wild. 
When I try to answer a sunbeam 

With the knowledge of little child! 

The little one leads the leaders. 

And plain is the truth to all. 
That wisdom is childhood over. 

And knowledge is, not to fall; 
For sure as the wind brings morning, 

And love is a light to see, 
I shall know more than knowledge 

When the little one walks with me! 



119 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
GIRLS 

IF you pick them when they're young 
They are always fine and sweet, 
With the dew upon their Hps 

And the dancing in their feet. 
It is with them as with flowers, 

And the king is he who knows 
The ragweed from the violet 
And the bramble from the rose. 

If you pick them when they're mellow 

With the dream of middle age. 
They're a little bit like lilac. 

Or like lavender and sage. 
But sweetness has not left them. 

And they're still to be desired, 
With their arms and voice to soothe you 

When you're feeling fagged and tired. 

If you pick them when the shadow 

Of the gray days groweth long — 
Like an autumn's golden meadows 

In the twilight land of song — 
There is still a holy sweetness 

In the heart that's true as gold, 
And a girl is always angel, 

And her heart is never old! 



I20 



HER LAST DOLL 



HER LAST DOLL 

HER last doll! Childhood on footsteps fleet 
Is now where the girl and the woman meet; 
She'll not want dolHes another year, 
And she laughs at the thought, it is very queer; 
So this is her last, and she hugs it tight. 
With its dainty garb and its dream of light: 
Good-by girlhood, when dolls are dead 
And the old, old heart of playtime fled! 

She grows so fast, and she's done with toys! 
This is the last of her pristine joys; 
She'll look for grown-up things next time, 
And her heart will dwell in another cHme, 
And she'll laugh at dollies and think it odd 
That she ever answered a rag doll's nod 
With fairy chatter of childhood tongue 
In the old, old beautiful age of young! 

Her last doll ! Ah, what a sigh for one 
Who eats the blossom and drinks the sun! 
She thinks we are fooHsh to tease her so. 
And dreams no matter how big she may grow, 
She'll want a doUie and will be child, 
With its laughing spirit of April smiled. 
And won't grow weary of girlhood play — 
For isn't a girl's life always May? 

Her last doll! Christmas will always come, 
With tune of trumpet and roll of drum; 

121 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

But playtime ends, and the summer dies, 
And over the valley the grown world lies, 
Calling, luring, till children spring 
To its rapt allure on an eager wing; 
And so, my darling, we know, we know. 
How, just as certain as anything. 
Your doll that you love and cherish so 
Will soon be only your Long Ago 
Where the old, old girlhood memories cling! 

THE POOR LITTLE FELLER WHAT HASN'T 

NO MA 

THEY lend him their pencils and give him a bite 
Of apple, and help him to do his sums right; 
They let him be "driver," and alluz declare 
He ought to be given the heapingest share: 
They're kind when he's fretful, and pleasant and sweet 
At school or at home or at play on the street; 

And they say when you ask them, with whispers of awe — 
"He's the poor little feller what hasn't no Ma!" 

The girls, even, pet him and won't spell him down 
When the word is a whopper and makes 'em all frown 
And stumble and mumble, just tryin' their best 
To let him remember it first 'fore the rest; 
He wins all the marbles, and don't have to fight. 
And seems to be havin' a life of delight. 

Because it's the code of the schoolchildren law 
'Ith the poor Httle feller what hasn't no Ma! 

122 



THE POOR LITTLE FELLER 

He gets the best pickles and has the most fun 
Just livin' a Hfe of contentment and sun, 
With everyone tryin' the best that they can 
To make it all up to him, ere he's a man. 
What he's missin' and missin' f'um day unto day 
Not havin' no mother to go to f'um play, 
Ner kneel to at nighttime, just only a Pa — 
The poor Httle feller what hasn't no Ma! 

They tie up his shoestrings and lend him their knife, 
And the girl they call Susie says he's her whole life; 
And he gets lots of lovin' where'er he may roam 
Just to make up the lovin' he's missin' at home; 
That is, if a love can be made half as sweet 
As a boy's muvver gives when he comes f'um the street 
All weary and hungry — ^Lord help us to draw 
Right up to the feller what hasn't no Ma! 



123 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



A 



A LITTLE CHILD |^ 



LITTLE child may teach strong men 
From weak intent to rise again 



To nobler purpose, stronger will 
Against the seeming shards of ill. 

A little child may teach strong men, 

For often comes the moment when 

With thoughts distracted, hearts outworn 

With burdens not so lightly borne. 

We go to them, and from their play 

Some spiritual uplift take away 

That cheers and brightens and secures 

The deathless will that oft endures 

Beyond the Hmit and the meed 

Of human strength, till trials impart 

The lesson of the larger heart. 

The blessing of the kindlier creed. 

A little child may do so much 
With that unconscious childhood touch 
Of innocent content and trust 
To lift us from the stifling dust 
Of discord and discouragement, 
As though a golden charm were sent 
To change with waving of a wand 
The sombre shadows of the land 
To silvery sunlight shining far 
And nights of blue with many a star 

124 



CHILDHOOD SPIRIT 



Of joy still twinkling for our cheer 
To lift us from the dull and drear. 

A little child may teach strong men, 
And save strong men, and bring again 
That trust, that hope, that will to try 
Which saves us from the dreams that die. 



CHILDHOOD SPIRIT 

GIVE me childhood spirit till I die, 
April's laughter, bluebird's chafter, azure sky! 
Give me morning drifting dewy to my feet, 
Clumps of crocus, daffodilly, meadow-sweet; 
God forgive the longing, leaning, on the dream, 
Fain to follow childhood's glory and its gleam! 

Give me childhood spirit till the gray 

Of the twilight sets the stars and cloaks the day; 

Give me music on blown grasses and the tune 

Of love's singing on the bloomy lips of June; 

God forgive the hesitancy of my soul. 

Shrinking back again to childhood from the goal! 

Give me childhood spirit till the end, 

Fairy fancies with whose figures shadows blend; 

Lead me dancing with thy finger tips, O spring, 

Flash of cresset, flame of scepter, rose of wing; 

God forgive the little crying in my heart 

For the dreams that break like bubbles and depart ! 

125 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

LITTLE CHILD AT CHRISTMAS 

LITTLE child is bubbles, 
And little child is bloom, 
And she is like a dancing mist 

Set whirling in the room. 
Little child at Christmas, 
What else should she be 
Than miracle and happiness 
And glorifying glee! 

Little child is radiance. 

Little child is glow 
Of light upon the fairy hills 

Where morns of April grow. 
Little child at Christmas, 

What they've made her of 
Is arms that twine, and tenderness, 

And sublimating love. 

Little child is eldritch, 

Little child is beam, 
A rosy, dancing dervish 

On the magic miles of dream. 
Little child at Christmas 

Is love to which we cling 
With lips that make the spirit 

Of the Christ within us sing. 



126 



THE WASHERWOMAN 



THE WASHERWOMAN 

WHEN the washerwoman comes, 
She's so old there's only gums 
Where there used to be her teeth, 
'Cept some jagged ones beneath; 
And we 'ist delight all day 
Listenin' to the things she'll say; 
And we know she's older, more. 
Than before they was a war. 

Takes the basket full of clothes 
On her head, and walks off so's 
Not to spill 'em; when she's through 
Washin' 'em she wrings 'em too. 
And holds clothespins in her mouth 
Like the slaves did in the South, 
So she tells us, 'en she grins 
As she smiles between the pins. 

Day the washerwoman's here 
Muwer says we very near 
Set her crazy — but, who knows 
What she'd do 'ith people's clothes 
If we didn't make her talk 
To us children, while we walk 
Round the tubs and watch her wring 
Sheets and slips and ever'thing? 



127 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Mostest fun is when she's done 
An' she tells us stories. One 
'At she tells is once when she 
Used to wash for Gen'l Lee; 
Makes us feel so queer, and sigh, 
And Old Mammy wipes her eye 
Just like it was full of tear 
Or of somefin very near. 



THE WORLD 

THE house is such a dreat big world, 
It takes me all the day 
To go to every place there is 
When one's a-doin' away. 
It's first the libr'ry an' the den, 

The parlor and the hall, 
The dinin' and reception room. 
An' then the best uv all! 

1st what I mean is this, you see, 

The kitchen's best, fer when 
Y'u get to it y'u can turn roun' 

An' travel back again. 
An' then's the music room, an' then, 

Upstairs is still to go; 
An' after while we's tired, an' 'en 

Our feets is awful slow. 



128 



THE FAT LITTLE GIR 

There's lots an' lots uv fings to see 

That's in this world of ours; 
They's pictures on the walls inside, 

An' outside they is flowers; 
An' where us children go to bed 

There's picture books an' toys; 
An' they's a garret way upstairs 

Where we can make a noise. 

I like to go around the world 

At morning when it's sweet 
In every room, and sunbeams come 

To cuddle at your feet. 
An' when it's night I like to climb 

Upon a lap I know, 
Like climbin' up a mountain side 

All covered up wif glow. 



THE FAT LITTLE GIRL 

HERE'S to the cheek and the chin and the curl 
And the dimple-cute hand of the fat little girl! 
Everyone teases her, this one and that, 
Pausing to laugh just because she is fat: 
Ho! for the cheer of her; 
Ho! for the dear of her; 
Hail to the temper of sweetness and grace 
And the rose of the sunshine that blooms in her face! 



129 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

All of her brothers, her father and mother, 
Nickname her Dumpling and vie with each other 
To tempt her and tease her — but here's to the curl 
And the cheek and the chin of the fat little girl! 

Ho! for the charm of her; 

Bed-pillow arm of her; 
Hail to her laughter that rings like a bell, 
Flooding the world with the sweet of her spell ! 

Here's to the fat little girl of the home, 

Kind as an elf and as gentle as gnome; 

Every one weighing her, teasing and crying: 

"It wouldn't be safe, dear, to undertake flying!'' 

Ho! for the smile of her; 

Half a broad mile of her; 
All of it sweetness and laughter and light. 
With a heart like the sun, making other hearts bright! 

"Isn't she jolly!" they say on the street; 
Everyone loves her she chances to meet; 
Here's to her spirit that smiles out of care 
At the weight of the world she is destined to bear: 

Ho! for the joy of her; 

Oh! the tomboy of her; 
Here's to her gladnesss, her wit and her glee; 
Here's to the first little fat girl you see! 



130 



MUD 

MUD 

MUD is oncet when spring had come 
1st a Httle bit, an' some 
Of the water and the rain 
Had been left along the lane; 
An' we found it, and we squealed 
1st Hke joy does when you've feeled 
Somefin happen all inside 
Where your funny feelin's hide. 

Mud is what our muwers say 
'At they wish would keep away 
F'um the carpets and the stair 
When we chilluns enter there 
And forget our feet is made 
To be wiped off where she laid 
Old rag carpets down and told 
Ef we didn't she would scold. 

Mud's for muwers to despise, 
But for chillun, it's ist pies, 
An' the mostest fun, an' we 
Ist bloom Uke the spring 'ith glee 
When there's puddles an' we make 
Tin pan stoves to bake the cake 
And the puddings; and there's more 
Fun than all in playin' store. 



131 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

God made mud 'at little child 
Might come home f 'um school half wild 
'Ith her fancy all made up 
'At she'd get a spoon and cup 
And make ever' sort uv thing 
What mud's fit to make in spring; 
Bubblin', dreamin', singin' rhyme 
Clear till time for supper time. 



132 



ROUND THE YEAR WITH 
NATURE 



THE KING OF SPRING 

ADVANCE your standards and salute the king, 
Who comes with Hps that sing 
The immemorial music of the spring! 

Not on high throne of state, 

But still with heart elate. 

And visions beautiful and mystic thought 

Of strange mutations by the wayside wrought, 

This is the king that comes 

Not to the tocsin of the fifes and drums 

But dancing to the dew-pipes of the dawn, 

The flute of shepherd on the hills, where fawn 

Skipping the forest fastness dash apace 

And old green earth becomes a merry place. 

Rejoice that his cheeks are rosy, that his eyes 

Are blue as skies 

When June breaks broadly from her leash of rain 

And sings down stairs again 

In glee of girlhood, all her rippling joy 

Of laughter ringing as the silver toy 

Of Hfe blows bubbling by her from the bowl 

Of silver soul. 

Lower your lances; at attention rest! 
This is the king who wears a tousled crest, 
Straw-hatted, all unsceptred, but for this — 
A wand of magic and of power, I wis, 

135 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

To win the heart from conflict and despair — 
A fishing pole, a stave that waved in air 
Over the babbhng cascades of the spring 
Makes every boy in Christendom a king! 

Mark you his color! What a pomp is that 
Of cherry bloom beneath the fluttering hat; 
Pink wine of roses, violet essences 
Distilled in dew of morning pleasaunces 
On country byway and the meadow path 
That leads to silent dreams from noisy wrath, 
From fanfare of the million-footed mart 
Unto the golden fairyland of heart, 
Where Fancy — fettered in our steamheat strife — 
Breaks, as a butterfly its woven shell. 
Forth from the shattered confines of her cell 
Into the bloom and fragrancy of life! 

Way for the king! Make way for one who glows 

Sovereign in boy land on a throne of rose; 

Free to announce his wishes with a leap, 

And prone to keep 

State in the rumpled shirt of gingham check 

Than walk the deck 

Of stateship thundering on the seas of might 

Or lead to triumph Xerxes hosts of light. 

Tyrant, perhaps, to kittens and old frogs 
Prone in the sunlight on half-sunken logs. 
But innocent of nations, and unstained 
With blood of minions by his barbed spears trained. 

136 



HOW THE FISHING FEVER COMES 



He is rhyme's, 

Sovereign and monarch of the rosy cHmes, 

Comrade of all the beasties and the birds. 

Translatable to him in joys the words 

Of morning babbling by her gates of mist, 

And sweet his lips unkist 

Of pain and passion, but like buds still pouting 

To tease the nymph upon her woodland outing, 

And tempt the naiad, and harken back to man 

The beard and pipe and cloven hoof of Pan. 

Play up the drums! By reedy rivers greet 
This king of mornings sweet; 
Bubble and bloom and dancing light a-wing — 
The king of spring! 



HOW THE FISHING FEVER COMES 

SYMPTOM one— a lazy feeling 
Through the bones and body stealing. 
Symptom two — a sort of pity 
For yerself penned in the city 
When the good green world's inviting 
Out of doors and fish are biting. 

Symptom three — the same old lazy, 
Yawny feeling; sets you crazy, 
Buried deep in life's distractions — 
Ledger, daybook, bills and fractions— 

137 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

When you know the crick is fine 
And you're dreamin' hook and Hne. 

Symptom four — the same thing over; 
Stretch awhile, then smelhn' clover, 
Thinkin' catkins, swaying glossy, 
And of ferny banks and mossy. 
Where the river sings and shimmers 
And the warm spring sunshine glimmers. 

Symptom five — just like the others: 
Oh, it's fishing time, my brothers, 
When the fever, all a-sudden. 
Makes us think of lilacs buddin'. 
And the heart turns back to boyhood 
With its honeyed days of joyhoodi 

Only way to cure it's this way: 
Take the old path down to bliss way, 
Down to lanes where Mister Robin 
Sits upon a cedar bobbin'. 
And you come back to your duty 
Chocked up to the chin with beauty. 

Don't resist it! Better catch it! 
Nothin' in the world can match it 
For old downright purifyin' 
Of life's turmoil and its tryin'. 
Are you ready? Let's away. 
Back to boyhood land today! 



138 



SEPTEMBER IN THE LANES OF DREAM 

SEPTEMBER IN THE LANES OF DREAM 

SEPTEMBER in the lanes of dream, and all the land a 
glory; 
September in the lanes of dream — I love to tell the story! 
The very honey of the year, the hived and golden beauty 
Of harvests of the woods and fields, with all their essence 
fruity ! 

September in the lanes of dream — swing down, lightheart, 

to meet her! 
The maple with its crimson crown, already there to greet her! 
The sass'fras in its golden blush, the aster in the hollow. 
O lady in the meadow-mist, dance on where mad dreams 

follow! 

September in the lanes of dream, those eyes of her, behold 

them! 
The grapes are crushed upon her lips; the pears, her arms 

enfold them! 
Far on the golden piper plays, where through the woodland 

glancing 
The shadows of the summer days down every wind go dancing! 

September in the lanes of dream, her arms with brown nuts 

laden, 
Oh, wake ye all your songs, my heart, unto the golden maiden ! 
September in the lanes of dream — I love to tell the story 
Of crimson on her lips of love and of her golden glory! 



139 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
HAWBERRIES 

THE hawberry's ripe on the black-haw tree, 
And, oh, for the lads in the lanes of glee! 
Tiptoe under the bending vine. 
Drinking the juice of the wild-grape wine. 
Tanned and tousled and bramble torn, 
But light with the lightheart dreams of morn: 
Hawberries, hawberries, come to my mouth, 
While the hoar frost lies in the bloom of the South! 

Mr. OTossum has been here first. 
And gathered the finest and left the worst; . 
But these are apples of gold, because, 
A vision goes under the bough of the haws 
Of freckled urchins and autumn days 
And leaf -flamed valleys of mist and haze: 
Hawberries, hawberries, ripe and sweet 
With the wildwood nectar for drink and meat! 

Dogwood, maple, and gum a-shine. 
With the scarlet flame of the creeper vine: 
Spice-bush burning with coral gems 
And the juniper lifting its diadems: 
Hawberry's ripe on the black-haw tree. 
And, oh, for the lads in the lanes of glee! 

Hawberries, hawberries — yonder they play 
In the lanes of the laughter of yesterday! 



140 



SONG OF THE THRUSH 



SONG OF THE THRUSH 

SONG of the thrush in the evening — 
You know what it is that you hear? 
A voice as if echoed from water, 

So cooling, and drippy, and near! 
A flight of impassionate rapture, 

A quiver of feehng so sad 
That you know there's a burning heart waiting 
With a message to make the world glad. 

The song of the thrush in the evening — 

You wander 'mid places of peace, 
And the green, quiet nooks are around you 

Until the fine cadences cease; 
There's a sound like the splashing of fountains, 

And a ripple of far-away rain. 
And a soul seems to sing to the mountains 

From the deeps of a spirit of pain. 

The song of the thrush in the evening — 

And now the whole woodland's a bower, 
And you think you can hear the soft, velvet, 

Slow opening bloom of the flower; 
Then the chant of a choir in the distance 

Where aisles of cathedrals stretch cool. 
Or a hymn from love's lips in the morning 

Rising out of a moss-bordered pool. 

The song of a thrush in the evening — 

Do you know what that song is, that cry? 

141 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Is it not something alien to labor, 
Is it not something near to the sky? 

Is it not that all hope and all parting, 
All meeting and every farewell 

Of the soul of the singer upstarting 
Is filling the earth with its spell! 



THE GARDEN CURE 

I TOOK the garden cure last year 
And reaped a crop of song and cheer 
The seed was bad and would not grow, 
But how much more I learned to know 
Of nature's patience and her trust 
In destinies beyond the dust! 

It beats the pills the doctors give. 
This outdoor living and let live; 
This exercise of arm and thought — 
A medicine divinely bought 
With spending of the heart's sweet grace 
For rosebud cheeks and smiling face. 

A spade, a shovel and a hoe, 
A springtime morning with the glow 
Of beauty on the hills, and then 
A little pitching in like men 
To loose the sweet scent from the soil 
With strokes of dream on arms of toil. 
142 



A VERNAL EVENT 



The grass may die, the chickens scratch 
The last seed from the garden patch, 
But somewhere in your system still, 
The glorious alchemy will thrill, 
And nature in her own way finds 
Green cures for all the barren minds. 

I took the garden cure: ah, me! 
I would the world might share my glee 
Of simple love in simple things. 
The friendship of the bird that sings, 
The comrade beasties of the wood. 
And, more than all, the joy that springs 
From kindly offices of good! 

A VERNAL EVENT 

ARBUTUS is holding a dainty pink tea 
In the leaves at the foot of the sycamore tree; 
A vernal occasion, at which all the birds 
Have found little souvenirs bound with blue words. 

Arbutus herself is as pink as a rose, 

With shoulders as white as the hyaline snows, 

And she wears a green skirt, and such satiny shoes. 
As scarce make a print where they fall on the dews! 

It's a quiet affair; where the flavors are bloom 
Of the delicate essence of airy perfume. 

And each guest at the table — sans meat and sans roll — 
Eats a little green thought for the good of his soul! 

143 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE RED-WING 

THAT'S a twilight song to hear worth the hearing, faraway 
Where the green wood rims the edge of the hot and 
sultry day. 
That's a song, indeed, that seems as if uttered from the cool 
Of some quiet, sweet green place by the edges of a pool, 
And it lifts you out of care, till your burden does not count, 
And unto the starry void on his wings of song you mount: 
Oh, the red-wing, hear him sing, 
With that human sorrowing, 
And that pathos and that passion 
Of a sweetheart for the spring! 

As if waterfalls were flowing where some cascade spills its dew 
Comes that song of summer twilight through the heated air 

to you; 
And its magic half transports you to some island in a sea 
Where the lost hopes homeward flutter to the groves of Arcady, 
And you think you know what Eden must have been that 

early morn 
When the breath of God passed over and a Paradise was 
born : 

Oh, the red-wing, how he tries 
To commune with other skies, 
As the gray dusk closes round him 
And the garish daylight dies! 

It is vocal of a river, is that ripple that we hear 
Of his song of summer evening with its cadence on the ear, 

144 



EARTH'S LOOKING-GLASS 



And the dust and roar and rumble of the road and of the 

street 
Fade in dreams of something pleasant, so refreshing and so 

sweet; 
For his song is an oasis in the desert of the day, 
Bringing thoughts of cool, green places in the woodlands far 
away: 

Oh, the red-wing, hear him call, 
Like a wind-dashed waterfall. 
With the twihght hovering round us 
And the spirit over all! 

EARTH'S LOOKING-GLASS 

EARTH stands beside her silver sea. 
Her grace and charm reflected there, 
And smiles her eerie smile of glee 
And sticks a blossom in her hair. 

The waves her mirror, to and fro 

Before her far-reflected form 
She walks until her belts of snow 

Melt into spring's fresh tears and warm. 

She tries her bonnet of the sky 

In all its blue effulgence on. 
And in the dews that fall from high 

Dips deep her violet lips of dawn. 

A robin startles from its throes 

The stiff turf where the sunbeams pass: 

145 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

And yesterday becomes a rose, 
And at our feet occurs the grass. 

Again upon her silver sea 

She glances; and her glades of gloom 
Have wheeled into a world of glee 

Surrounded by inviolate bloom. 



A CHILD IN SPRING 

OH, to be a child in the morning of the spring, 
With a bob and a bounce and a dance and a swing, 
A rally round the Maypole and a touch of eerie glee. 
Because the very blossoms are so very kind to me! 

Oh, to be a child in the bright fresh weather, 

With a plunge and a leap o'er the hill and the heather; 

Whip-top, grace-hoops, hi-spy and ball. 

And dreams among the daisies where the light feet fall 1 

Oh, to be a child when the fish fill the streams. 
And the world is a bubble and the earth's full of dreams, 
The bright blooms flutter and the grass comes again 
And the rainbow follows in the path of the rain ! 

Oh, to be a child and to know nothing matters. 
When the brook babbles by and the blue-bird chatters, 
And we bob and we bound and we're fluffy and we're light, 
And we won't come in till it's dark, dark night! 

146 



THE PREACHER OF THE SUNLIGHT 
THE PREACHER OF THE SUNLIGHT 

AT church in the mornin' the sermon's all right 
If the preacher is preachin' of sweetness and Hght; 
But if he should fail me, I know there is one 
Whose text is just drippin' and dreanin' with sun; 
For he sits in the hedge where I pass every day, 
And preaches and warbles and chatters away! 

He's a Bible expounder, this Reverend Bird, 
Who gives us the root and the bloom of the Word, 
And sets our hearts free from their struggle and care 
With his voice of delight in the sweet of the air, 
Where we look all around and we join in and sing 
While the skies bend above like a cup full of spring! 

I'm orthodox, certain, and glad to confess 

The church is the place to be saved; but I guess 

Book preachers get rusty, and when they forget 

To fill me with sunshine, I'm ready, you bet. 

To give Mr. Robin my closest attention. 

As he sings of bright skies with his soul at high tension ! 

Oh, preach to me, gifted, divine Uttle singer, 

Of sunshine, and be to my heart the sun bringer! 

Preach to me sweetness and love over all, 

Thou red-breasted, love-raptured, wayside St. Paul, 

Till I see with thy bird eyes the heaven all around us 

And the truths that uplift us and never confound us! 



147 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE MAGIC BANJO 

AUTUMN evening, autumn evening, swing your curtains, 
swing them low; 
Bring the pipe beside the chimney and take down the old 

banjo; 
Autumn evening, autumn evening, when the frost is on the 

pane, 
Oh, hear the magic music of the banjo come again: 
Plink, plunk; plink, plunk; 

Lovers of life, away! 
Moonbeams are glancing, swift feet are dancing. 
Lovers must have their day! 

Autumn evening, autumn evening, when the winds that walk 

the world 
Round the portals roar and rattle and against the door are 

hurled — 
Autumn evening, autumn evening, fill the pipe and brim the 

bowl. 
While the magic banjo drifts us down the rivers of the soul: 
Plink, plunk; plink, plunk. 

Whispers of winds no more; 
Sweet eyes are gleaming, sweethearts are dreaming 

Over the smooth oak floor! 

Autumn evening, autumn evening, when the hollow and the 

hill 
To the echo of the beagles and the horns of hunters thrill. 
Draw the trivet o'er the hearthfire, set the kettle where it 

sings 

148 



THE CARELESS SINGER 



Of the summers that have faded and the bloom of vanished 

springs: 
Plink, plunk; plink, plunk, 

Fairies in dingles sweet, 
Out of brown reaches of maples and beeches 

Come with soft patter of feet! 

Autumn evening, autumn evening, when the frost begins to 

bite, 
Hang the lanterns on the rafter till the old barn wakes in 

light; 
Hi-lo, buskers, hunt the red ear and upon a red cheek lay 
Lips of love in league of laughter with the heart of happy day: 
Plink, plunk; plink, plunk, 
Under the ring and rune. 
Waltz, every dearie, with young hearts as cheery 
As heart of Cock Robin in spring! 

THE CARELESS SINGER 

HIGH on his airy perch all day 
A mockingbird pours forth his lay; 
Some sweet, low strain, and then a flame 
Of music poured through trembling frame; 
Careless what passing peasant ear 
The rapture of the song may hear, 
Or whether any; still he sings — 
Divine indifference to Things! 

Thou, too, O poet, hast the style 
Of careless songsmith — spending smile^ 
149 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Keen pathos, flame and bugle peal 
Of battle, where true steel meets steel; 
Indifferent, so in love's good time. 
Some brow may feel the falling rhyme, 
Some heart amid the passing throng 
May wake responsive to the song! 

Ah, give me but the will to know 
The bird's wild art, the poet's glow, 
The beauty of unconscious grace 
Bloomed in the wayside rose's face! 
That I, too, spendthrift of my lay. 
May sing my heart out by the way. 
Indifferent unto praise or blame 
Through rapture of the joyous flame! 

HIS CATCH 

ON a bank 'neath a willow tree he sat, 
V/ith a dream of May 'neath his old straw hat ; 
Pole and line and a can of bait, 
And a spirit of patience to fish and wait; 
And when he came home at night — ah, me — 
Could anyone guess what his catch would be? 
Dreams and dreams of a day of rest, 

Songs of birds and the trees a-swish; 
A happy heart 'neath his canvas vest — 
But nary a fish! 

Down the street with his pole a-swing 
He came when the dusk with dreamy wing 

150 



HIS CATCH 



Folded the street and the little cots 
And the garden paths and the pasture lots 
With gray and silver of night — and he 
Had caught what none but the Lord could see: 
Briar and bramble and vale and hill, 
Robin's rapture and water's splish; 
The good green vale and the quiet hill — 
But nary a fish! 

Kicking the dust in the tree-lined street 

With the stubbly toes of his bare brown feet, 

Whistling a jig and singing a snatch 

Of an old hymn learned 'neath a cotter's thatch; 

Rugged and rosy — but if inside 

The home-made creel on his arm you spied 

Joy and laughter and cheer would glow, 
Song and bloom and the springtime glee, 

And only the fish that the fairies know 
In the dreamland sea! 

Watching the cork bob up and down, 

And the clouds go by, then back to town 

Soaked and softened and filled chin high 

With the sweet spring day and the soft blue sky: 

Open his basket and there you'll see — 

For all of the fishing he's done — ah, me. 

Only the music of wood and lane, 
Cricket's chirp and the water's splish; 

A heart washed clean in the holy rain — 
But nary a fish! 



151 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

AFTER DEATH IN ARCADY 

AFTER death in Arcady 
Rear no marble shaft to me, 
So the rose may bend in bloom 
Where the green earth gives me room, 
And the linnet in the croft, 
And the swallow in the loft. 
Say they knew me, 

Knew me, knew me. 
Sing they loved me and they knew me! 

After death in Arcady, 
Lay me low and let me be, 
So the robin from his cover 
Sighs to lose another lover; 
Comes, with heartache borne a-wing, 
Back to warble in the spring 

That he knew me, 
Knew me, knew me. 

That he loved me and he knew me! 

Carve no cross and make no mark. 
They will find me in the dark. 
And I'll know them when they pass 
By my home beneath the grass; 
And I'll hear them, like a gleam 
Of loved voices in a dream. 

Say they knew me. 
Knew me, knew me, 

Sing they loved me and they knew me! 

152 



AFTER DEATH IN ARCADY 

Let the little wood beasts come 
To the burial of the dumb, 
So I'll hear them where they chatter, 
Asking plainly: "What's the matter?" 
And among the leaves at play 
Hear them murmur, hear them say 

That they knew me. 
Knew me, knew me, 

That they loved me and they knew me! 

Let the sunbeam bring the sea 
To my grave in Arcady; 
Let the moonbeam bring the light 
Of the cloth-of-silver night; 
Let the red dawns break above 
Like an April morn of love; 
Let the greenwood, heart of mine. 
Keep its vigils of the pine. 
Let my fairy friends, the true. 
Dance the fire-dance of the dew. 
And the violets, where they creep. 
In blue whispers, while I sleep. 

Say they knew me. 
Knew me, knew me. 

Sing they loved me and they knew me! 

Write no record; leave the words 
Of my memory to the birds. 
To the rambling briar and bloom 
And the green grass of the tomb, 

153 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

So all creatures, tame or wild, 
Lips of love and lips of child 

Say they knew me, 
Knew me, knew me, 

Sing they loved me and they knew me! 

After death in Arcady, 

Oh, my love, remember me! 

For in Arcady, you know, 

That whichever one must go, 

Love through death still clasps and clings, 

Love through death still sighs and sings 
That she knew me, 

Knew me, knew me, 
Through the tomb she whispers to me 
That she loved me and she knew me! 



EARTH'S GLADNESS 

WHEN earth puts her bonnet of blue on her head 
And ties it down under her chin 
With a riband of bloom and a gossamer thread. 
Oh, what a sweet face to look in ! 

What smiles and what roses, what grace and what poses, 

What lips and what wonderful eyes; 
What nods and what glances as yonder she dances 

On the brim of the violet skies! 



154 



THE AUGUST MOON 



THE AUGUST MOON 

THE moon is on her silver stair, 
With all her white robes glimmering fair; 
The night is blue in regions far 
And on her head she wears a sta-r: 
Sweet night, sweet light, o'er hill and stream, 
And now I lay me down to dream! 

Oh, wind that walks upon the sea. 

Walk in my window unto me, 

And all around my little bed 

On feet of silvery moonbeam tread: 

Sweet wind of love that breathes and blows 

As soft as any breath of rose! 

Oh, lady do not dwell alone 

With me, but seek in love's fair zone 

Her heart, whose memory is so dear, 

And lay thy lips upon her ear 

That she may wake and look with me 

Upon this silver world and sea! 

She climbs the arcs of sea and sky. 
On leaf and vine she dances by: 
Dim castanets are on her feet; 
O moon of music, tranquil sweet; 
Her lips are on the trumpet flower 
And I am in the fairy hour! 



155 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

A matron-moon, that still can be 

Like April in virginity: 

With all her white robes glimmering fair, 

The moon is on her silver stair; 

Her lovely garments round me sweep, 

And now I lay me down to sleep! 



CALAMUS 

SWORDS of the Naiads and spears of Pan 
That were made for man ere the making of man; 
Green blades of the marshes, with succulent pith 
To take us back to the monolith; 
Tall, bright bayonets, swaying and sweet. 
Where the tides of the waters of mermen meet! 

Lances of lovely and fragile growth 
For the winter nibbling of rat and sloth; 
Bloom of the bogs where the reeds, blown airy. 
Sway in their purple for plumes of fairy; 
Ranked in the marshes like files of song 
That unto the Genesis belong! 

Wands of the wood-nymphs — there they go 

Down through the reeds where the rivers flow; 

Old Silenus, with spell of yore. 

Weaving the mist of the golden shore; 

Pan still piping, with wagging ear. 

The song of the tall, green calamus spear! 

156 



SNOW ON THE DREAM 



SNOW ON THE DREAM 

IT has snowed all over my nice green dream 
That I dreamt of the spring by the dell and the stream; 
It has snowed all the buttercups deep as can be, 
And the bloom of the mead and the balm of the sea. 
Over, all over my dream it lies, 

But I will not weep again. 
For beauty is burning in yon blue skies 
And there's summer enough for men! 

It has snowed all over the valleys of rest 
That seemed a green dream with the bloom on its breast; 
It has snowed all the hollyhocks down to the deep 
Where the warm little, wild little wood beasties sleep. 
Over us, over us, me and my dream. 

It has fallen in the sweet of the night ; 

But I shall not worry, for after the flurry 

Loved Hps will still lead to the light! 

It has snowed all over the pictures I drew 
Of May on the hills and her dimples of dew; 
It has snowed all the jasmine, but snow as it will 
It cannot keep dreamers from dreaming things still. 
Cannot keep dreamers from dreaming, ah no. 

Nor who would want that to be done, 
For far through the bitter of wind and of snow 
'Tis the dream brings us back the dear sun! 



157 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
NATURE DECEIVES ME NOT 

NATURE deceives me not, nor ever lies 
Unto my soul with her divine surprise 
Of beauty 'mid beauty hidden where she locks 
Song in her brooks and history in her rocks, 
Music in every heartbeat of the bird 
In a still hour on morning hillsides heard. 

Nature is hail-well-met with all who come 
Unto her frugal hearthstone for a crumb 
Of the old manna of the field and wood, 
The humble substance of the natural good 
In soul and spirit, from whose wine-press flows 
The lilac loaf, the honey of the rose. 
The dainty condiment of vine and tree 
Ta'en to the orchestration of the sea 
Or to the windy foreland's thunder-crash 
Of clattering storm-stress, lightning's forked flash 
And the reverberant echo far away 
Where on slope fields unclouded sunbeams play. 

I can in all things trust her and be sure 
Of that which speaks "I fade" or "I endure." 
She hath no madcap fancies, o'erwrought tales. 
In nothing undertaken ever fails; 
But plain, straightforward, clear-eyed, calm as fate. 
She moves in destined pathways toward the Gate! 

Arm me, Great Mother, as thou'rt armed, with flower, 
Music as any linnet's gentle, or the power 
Of the great seatide at her ponderous piers, 
To pound down waiting centuries of grief, 

158 



THE SERMON OF LIGHT 



The wild old ocean-music of the years, 

Hoary with pain and salt of passionate tears! 

Train me, beloved of Ages, to thy truth, 

Beauty of bud and blooming of love as youth, 

Gone with the velvet footstep in the morn, 

As did white fauns to dance to Dryad's horn. 

Like waves to Neptune's. Give me, indeed, to hear 

The tremble of Triton's trumpet in my ear, 

The faith to be high as thou art over hate. 

Strong as thou art o'er weakness; calm to wait 

As thou art through old drifts of wrong and night 

Till the All- Justifying Change comes on — 

Green as young grass and beautiful as dawn — 

While the glad angels strike and Hft the Light! 

THE SERMON OF LIGHT 

BEAUTY furnishes its text, 
So that none may be perplexed 
With involved, obscure conclusions, 
Intricate or vain delusions. 
Love is creed of all it knows, 
And its liturgy, the rose. 
Then, to deepen and impress, 
It adviseth cheerfulness, 
Singing heart and laughing lip 
And the best of fellowship. 



Ah, its pulpit is the hill 
At whose feet deploys a rill, 

159 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

And in ambient circles there 
Sweeps the bloomy meadow air. 
For its dim cathedral aisles, 
Look where yonder woodland smiles, 
Reverent poplars in a line, 
Tapers of the vestal pine. 
Every heart of every tree 
Whispering benedicite! 

Would ye hear the chosen choir? 
Then to holiest joy aspire, 
For 'tis from the robin's throat 
That exhales the heavenly note, 
While the cricket comits its beads 
In the cloister of the weeds — 
Music fitting more to dwell 
In a soul's monastic cell 
Than be peddled, with its sweet. 
By a minstrel in the street! 

Now the sermon. Let us see 

How this preacher talks to me! 

Yesterday, when he was done, 

I had drunk the cup of sun. 

Brimmed with mist and bright with dew 

And adorned with Heaven's own blue: 

So, remembering what I heard 

As a song and not a word, 

I forgot life's aches, and went 

Unto higher sacrament! 



i6o 



THE FAIRY SHORE 



THE FAIRY SHORE 

MY thoughts are on some fairy shore, 
My dreams are of enchanted clim.es, 
Far, far beyond the rush and roar 

Of city streets and modern times; 
They speak to me of stocks and bonds, 

Of chances lost and fortunes made, 
I only see the ferny fronds 

Of good green woods and fairy glade! 

My thoughts are on some hill of child, 

My dreams are of an antique glee. 
With Crusoe and Man Friday isled 

Deep in an unfrequented sea; 
The rattle of the mill-wheel dies, 

The old machine-like life sinks down. 
And I am under magic skies 

With Sinbad many miles from Town! 

My thoughts are voyagers of no sail. 

My dreams are couriers of no wing. 
Now resting where calm airs prevail. 

Now wandering o'er a hill of spring; 
Upon a fairy shore I dwell, 

While round me whirls the roaring day — ■ 
A lightheart of the childhood spell 

In the green make-beHef of May! 



i6i 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE BLUE NOVEMBER NIGHTS 

NOVEMBER nights— ah, the night of blue 
With the stars to twinkle their rays at you ! 
The clear, far leagues of the azure dome, 
O beautiful hour of the autumn gloam, 
When the bluest blue of the skies is there, 
And the crisp, keen tingle is in the air! 
November nights, and the moon afar. 
And the silent deeps and the twinkling star! 

November nights — and the roadway lone, 
The cHcking heel on the gravel stone; 
By hill and shore to swing and stride 
Under the blue where the planets ride; 
Under the far, clear tent that lifts 
Where the meteor falls and the comet drifts; 
November nights, in the bending blue, 
Alone, sweetheart, with the stars and you! 

November nights — and the woods so still, 

The gray outlines of the dale and hill; 

The ripples ringing along the shore, 

The low, soft dip of a distant oar; 

The sweet, the sw^eep and the dream of night 

In the clear, crisp reign of the autumn light; 

And, oh, the beautiful blue of the blue 

In the skies above and the eyes of you! 



162 



THE BLUE NOVEMBER NIGHTS 

November nights — and the air so fine, 
The stars so clear in their golden shine; 
The heart so strong in its rhythmic beat 
And the tread so true of the swinging feet; 
The bending blue of the starlit zone; 
A love-song wafting from dream-lips blown, 
An eerie hour that thrills one through 
With the blue November night and you! 

November nights — and a grace that swings 
When Ariel out of the pine tree sings; 
A rhythmic, runic, golden time 
In the ripening hour of a golden cHme; 
The bending blue and the stars that call, 
The tender blue and the rays that fall — 
The beautiful, beautiful blue of the blue 
In the skies above and the eyes of you! 



163 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTON 

' T^IS now the time for fish to bite, 

1 The streams are sweet, the fields are bright, 
The lanes are gay with berry-bloom, 
The wild oats lifts its nodding plume; 
At morn the mists are on the deep 
And like a wing of pearl they creep 
Until a little wind comes by 
To blow them out to sea and sky! 

'Tis now the time for rock to run 
From capes of spray to shoals of sun. 
For perch to take the bait I fling 
Across the drowsy deeps of spring: 
Come pipe, come book, come old straw hat, 
My boat may leak, but what of that? 
From cove to cove and shore to shore 
We'll drift and dream and ask no more! 

Alone, except for one who sits 

Beside me where we test our wits — 

The spirt of old Izaak dear — 

I watch the skies around me clear. 

My heart at rest, my soul in line 

With wave and wind and shade and shine, 

A nip at noon, a nap or two, 

A boat, a book, a world of blue! 



164 



IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTON 



Oh, come with Izaak Walton, sweet, 
If on the shores of dream you'd meet 
The calm, the still, the lovely day 
With charm to chase your cares away, 
And spell to wake within the heart 
A grace of art beyond all art; 
The sense to feel, the sight to see 
Green visions of eternity! 

No bite? No fish? An empty creel? 
But think, beloved, that wholesome meal 
Of wind and wave and quiet cove, 
And wooded shores, and songs of love. 
And fruited bough and bending briar. 
And all the bloomy fields afire 
With wilding rose, and orchids hid 
The ferny woodland deeps amid! 

All day the quiet drift of things. 
The purr of wind and whirr of wings, 
The insect gossip in the grass, 
And shy things starthng as we pass; 
The snack at noon, the jug with cool 
Fresh water from the springside pool; 
The twilight sweetness on the hill. 
And then the dusk, and whippoorwill! 



165 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
JULY NIGHT 

No moon, but starlight, and soft afterglows 
From sunset radiance of the fiery ball 
Svv^ung to his cloud-bed in the misty waves 
Of shadow and of twilight. Far away 
The mournful woodnote of the whippoorwill — 
A sad voice caUing out of poignant years 
Of old, old loves and waitings weird and long 
For answering echoes from the tall oak grove 
Or pine clumps forming vanguards of the woods. 
Yonder the cities thundering in our dream 
With roar of night-sounds and the ring of wheels. 
Buzzing of trolleys on the surcharged wires, 
Clatter of hoofs on hard, metallic streets. 
Human up-breathings of the voice of pain. 
Chanting in brotherhood of wordless speech 
The common miserere of the race. 
Here in the quiet country nameless peace. 
Total reversion from the clang of things. 
The harsh reverberance and the roar of strife. 
Sudden a Bob White out of stillness borne 
Up to the ecstasy of that clear call 
Which weds to the wildness of the lovely world 
Weird and inviolate music of wild love. 
Flashes a firefly — then the shadowy lawn 
Bursts in a faery splendor where they wing, 
Pricking the fluttering foliage with their light 
Of delicate phosphor, or the weedy garth, 
Tall hedge and boxwood shrubbery by the gate. 



i66 



THE WORLD OF AUTUMN 



Warm is the air, and fragrant — and just now — 
Breathed through it faintly from the neighboring wood- 
Musk of the chestnut bloom, and chinquapin! 



THE WORLD OF AUTUMN 

A CRIMSON weed and cobalt seed, a burr and a thistle- 
pod, 
A poppy bloom and the yellow dust in the plume of the gold- 
enrod; 

A beautiful world to live in, 
Forget in and forgive in. 
To walk in and to work in, to rest in and to nod! 

A chestnut burr and a chinquapin, a haw with its berries 

black; 
A paw-paw sweet, a bin of wheat, the straw in the barnyard 
stack; 

A bountiful world to grow in, 
To reap in and to sow in. 
With joy in the blood a-bubble from the lips of youth blown 
back! 

The windfalls under the winesap, a barrel by the cider mill, 
A red corn ear in the husk somewhere, and a maid with her 
heart a- thrill; 

A fine old world to spark in. 
To sing in and to lark in. 
To find the old-time sweethearts the same old sweethearts 
still! 

167 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

A fox in the den by the berm bank, a horn on the hills of light, 
A minuet in the mansion with the hunters home in the night; 

A glorious world to dance in, 

To live life's old romance in, 
To court in and to sport in when the eyes of the maids burn 
bright! 



IN MEADOWS STILL 

THE choral morning wakes me not; 
On field and hill 
The lips of summer have forgot 

The rose's trill. 
The leagues are silent that were sweet 

With song and bloom; 
The snow is o'er the young green wheat, 
And winter's gloom. 

But, oh, my meadows, where I heard 

The robin's note, 
Like a wild antiphonal word 

In rapture float, 
I shall enjoy thy peace the while 

You sleep and dream 
Of April with her lilac smile 

On lips of gleam! 



i68 



PREMONITIONS 



PREMONITIONS 

THERE'S a bud on the bush by the lilac gate, 
And a bird on the bough in the lane; 
And, upon my soul, I can hardly wait 

For the bloom in the valley again! 
There's a knock at the door of the beautiful hill 

And a shadowy, far-off note 
Of song on the stream from the lips of dream, 
And the robin is clearing his throat! 

The eaves are a-drip, and the sod grows warm. 

And the trees are beginning to sigh; 
The spirit of bloom's in the wake of the storm. 

And there's infinite sweet in the sky: 
Tomorrow, perhaps, when I wake I shall see 

A catkin in velvet and brown. 
And Httle Miss Daffodil, golden in glee, 

A-stroll through the heart of the town! 

Oh, whisper it, wind, to my heart once more, 

There are snowdrops open, you say. 
And the streams are cleaning up house with a roar, 

Each moment expecting Miss May! 
I know it, I know it. Sir Tanager cries. 

And the meadows are waiting for me. 
And the earth is in infinite love with the skies. 

And the skies are in love with the sea! 



169 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE FLUTE OF TWILIGHT 

IF you've ever heard the thrill 
Of the lonesome whippoorwill; 
If you've ever heard the calling 
Of his woodsong, rising, falling, 
You have known the fairy music 

On the shores of fairy night, 
Where the fiddles of old sorrow 
Join the flutes of evenlight. 

If you've ever heard the trill 
Of his whip-poor, whip-poor-will; 
If you've ever heard the ditty 
Of his mournful cry of pity. 
You have heard the magic meaning 

Of the music of the dusk, 
Singing down to seas of summer 
On a breeze of April musk. 

If you've ever heard him fill 
All the night with whip-poor-will; 
If you've heard his sob repeated 
Till the hundredth time completed. 
You have listened to the dream-song 

Of the night of dreaming love 
Crying down enchanted casements 
Of the woods to stars above. 



170 



FIRE 

If you've ever heard the thrill 
Of the lonesome whippoorwill; 
If you've ever heard the crying 
Of this lovelorn spirit's sighing, 
You have been in happy regions 

Where the peerie dance and sing 
And the flutes of sylvan sadness 
Fill the nights of fairy spring. 



FIRE I 

FIRE! Fire! The woods are afire! 
The flame of the maple leaps higher and higher; 
The banks and the meadows are bursting in gold, 
The enginemen down in the dew should be told! 
Oh, ring the belled lihes and summon the rills, 
The autumn is smoking upon the brown hills; 
The sumac is gleaming, the sass'fras in sheen 
Of saffron and scarlet nods proudly between; 
The lanes are a glory, the fire is a-leap 
O'er bramble and bracken and valley and steep! 
Aye, call up the firemen from dew o' the morn, 
With clatter of engine and echo of horn! 
The frost is the rascal whose fingers, the scamp, 
Have fooled with the matches and upset the lamp! 



171 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOM 

ETERNAL are the tender bonds, 
And deathless oaths they take 
Who join the old felicities 
For sake of others' sake. 
A hand of earnest faith, a vow 
Of pledged and golden truth 
All in the simple bondage of 
The creed of deathless youth. 

A confraternity of love, 

Where conflicts rise they go 
To teach forgiveness how to thrive, 

Beatitude to grow. 
Unconscious of a head or crown, 

Or ruler more than right 
They walk a vestal company, 

Of kingdoms come to Hght. 

Disparagers of fight or fray. 

On force they softly smile, 
And laughter, arm in arm with song, 

Wakes all the blossoming mile. 
Irradiant with the old desire 

Of heart o'erta'en by sense. 
Their vows are on the altar laid 

Of higher excellence. 



172 



THE PALACE BUILDERS 



THE PALACE BUILDERS 

THE wind, the rain, the cold, the sleet, 
Four journeymen are they. 
Who chanced last night at toil to meet; 

And when I rose today 
The cedars at my window shone 

With mail they had put on 
To match the armor of the grass. 
The crystal of the lawn! 

Along each hedgerow they had reared 

A regal colonnade; 
The dogwood globed, the holly speared. 

And glory gleamed the glade; 
The naked trees had been transformed. 

The leafless vines were sheen, 
The pines bent down with crystal crown 

And all was fairy scene! 

But at the doorway of the wood, 

What handiwork I saw 
That in a breathless spell I stood 

And in a wordless awe! 
Here had the builders' quaint design 

All other skill outshorn, 
And I beheld an Arctic mine 

Lit by an ambient morn! 



173 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
MISS HOLLY 

WHO is this with berries red 
And green wreaths upon her head? 
Who is this with Hght feet tripping 
Where the mistletoe hangs, sHpping? 
Who is this with crimson splendor 
On her velvet cheeks and tender? 
Holly, holly, sweet Miss Holly, 
Laughing at our melancholy! 

Who is this with branch of pine 
And the green spruce boughs that twine 
Shelf and window, door and frame. 
Mixed with red globes' waxen flame? 
Who is this who dancing brings 
Lips of love and heart that sings? 
Holly, holly, sweet Miss Holly, 
Beaming bright and bhthe with folly! 

Who is this in green boughs dight, 
Smiling down with face of light. 
Waking old, memorial dreaming 
Of the happy yuletide's gleaming? 
Ring of laughter, songs of joy, 
Girl or phantom? Sprite or boy? 
Holly, holly, sweet Miss Holly, 
Wreath-ed head and berries jolly! 



174 



THE COMFORT OF THE WOODS 

THE COMFORT OF THE WOODS 

WHEN you are sad and feeling blue, 
The woods will tell you what to do. 
When heartache makes your care the sorest, 
Go tell your trouble to the forest. 
The noble and unselfish trees 
Will comfort you with song and breeze. 

The woods will tell you how to bear 
Each day the armament of care. 
That temple of the arching green 
Will give you thoughts that are serene 
With larger love and deeper trust 
For daily conflicts with the dust. 

The woods will tell you what you need 
To heal the wounded hearts that bleed; 
It will not dally nor deceive, 
But all it says to you believe — 
For it is ^mid green trees that God 
Walks with His velvet sandals shod. 



175 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
FEELING FIDDLISH 

CORN is in the tassel and melons on the vine 
Begin to lift their faces to the answering smile on mine; 
A faint, far-off suggestion of the golden autumn days 
In the glowing noons of August and the evening's cool with 

haze; 
In the woods the oak leaves falling, and the sassafras is red, 
And the chestnut burrs are forming, and where'er my foot- 
steps tread 
They slip and slide and tingle, and it's coming time, I know, 
To take down my old fiddle and to rosin up the bow. 
In fact, I'm feeling fiddUsh — and, it's sweep the old barn 

floor, 
We'll dance the dreamy measures that we danced in days of 

yore! 
Yes, feeling mighty fiddlish, and the weather says to me: 
"Just tune her up a little, with her plink-plink-plink-ut-tee; 
The season's here for fiddling, and you won't break any law 
If you take her down and tell us 'bout the turkey in the straw!" 



176 



A WOODLAND INVITATION 
A WOODLAND INVITATION 

COME down! Come down!" I heard a cry 
Of welcome ringing through the sky: 
"Come down! Come down!" I knew how fair 
The world must be around one there, 
With robin and his lady sweet 
To make the bloomy land complete! 

"Come down! Come down!" It rang all day, 

A joyous bird-song roundelay: 

"Come down! Come down! to field and wood!" 

I wish I could, I wish I could; 

Oh, lady of the velvet breast, 

I shall come down, I want to rest! 

"Come down! Come down!" at dusk the thrush 

Touched silvery lute strings through the hushj 

Across the valleys to the town 

I heard its echo: "Down, come down!" 

I will, I will; tonight, my sweet, 

In dreams amid the city's heat! 



177 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE DEAD BUTTERFLY 

I WANT my little butterfly that died; 
I want it, too, the heart within me sings; 
The velvet, fuzzy leggings on its legs, 

The azure of the twilight on its wings. 
I want it, I want it, want it very bad, 
Because it seemed so beautiful and glad! 

I want my Httle butterfly that flew 

From bloom to bloom, all fluttery and fine, 

With patterns that the artist-fairies drew 
Upon its coat in many a beauteous line. 

I want it, trembling still upon my hand. 

Like the quaint figure on the apex of a wand! 

I want my little butterfly again, 
With little dots and speckles on its side, 

So dehcately poised in field and lane 
Upon the bloom it kissed before it died. 

I want it, want it, with its beauty, yes I do, 

And wings that were a madrigal in blue! 



178 



VAST NATURE KEEPS HER COUNSEL STILL 

VAST NATURE KEEPS HER COUNSEL 

STILL 

VAST nature keeps her counsel still, 
And rolls her round and works her will ! 
Man, questioning, pauses to essay 
Some new-born science of the day, 
First causes, principles, intents, 
The wherefore and the why and whence, 
The cry for light, the greed to know 
The thus and why and if and so; 
But not the mountain yet, nor plain. 
Have stopped one moment to complain; 
The rivers run, the bays endure, 
The skies are blue, the stars are pure, 
The mighty forces, calm or wild, 
Smile down the years as they have smiled 
From Alpha and the primal dew 
Unto this hour of me and you. 
The avalanche leaps, the lightnings play, 
And night descends, or it is day; 
With patient purpose — good or ill — 
Vast Nature keeps her counsel still! 



179 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE KENTRY 

THE thing hits me in the wind, gee whiz, 
Is, my, what a sight o' ken try there is! 
God had bushels of beauty, sure, 
When He made the kentry so sweet and pure; 
And them there mountains; and, on yer knees, 
Jest try measurin' off them seas! 

'D y'u ever see such a stretch uv things! 
Birds don't know it, 'ith all the'r wings; 
And soar as fer as they could all day 
They'd just be journeyin' like 'twas play. 
Compared 'ith the space there wuz left ter go 
In the land God made for our souls ter grow! 

It's beautiful kentry, too, di-pen ! 

If heaven wuz goin' eround, and then 

Divin' and comin' right back again, 

I'd be so happy, 't'ud just suit me — 

And it's all the heaven I'd care ter see, 

If that's what the Master has meant fer me! 



i8o 



THE GOSPEL OF THE GREEN 
THE GOSPEL OF THE GREEN 

THERE is no text from which to preach 
The lessons nature strives to teach. 
There is no written word of law 
Contains the creed from which we draw 
The doctrine of her simple sense 
Of truth's divinest recompense. 

Her pages are a scroll of green, 

Placed where the all-enfolding sheen 

Of sunlight brings them into view 

Of all who pass the country through — 

A universal language writ 

With joy of bird and bloom of wit. 

Her unpretentious gospel spreads 
Where every human footstep treads, 
That we may ponder and grow wise 
From reading in the bending skies, 
The blue hills and the vales of song, 
That truth unending makes us strong. 



i8i 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
AN EPITAPH 

HERE lies a most beautiful day: 
So delicate, how could it stay! 
The crisp of the sunshine over the snow 
Made it a rapture of crystalline glow, 
And the keen wind under its feet 
Made it sweet as the marble-sweet 
Of a statue carved of berryl stone 
To keep forever and enthrone 
Some grace of a baccahant beauty caught 
In the rich wine of a ruby thought. 
Unto its memory here 
April shall bring its tear. 
And May its blossom, and June its song — 
For beauty is not for long, 
But being beautiful doth not stay 
Except as a beautiful day 
That memory lays to its rest at night 
With the velvet coverlet over its light. 



182 



THE MORNING MAIL 



THE MORNING MAIL 

HERE are letters — one, two, three — 
In the morning mail for me: 
One from sunrise on the hill, 
Setting all my heart a-thrill; 
One from greenwoods, dark and deep, 
Where the lonely fairies sleep: 
One from Bright Eyes, best of all, 
And the lips that wake and call 
Down the dewy paths that shine 
From her golden heart to mine. 

All is well, the sunrise writes; 
And the greenwood so indites 
On sweet messages of breeze 
That he wafts me from the trees. 
All is well, her echo rings 
Down the little lane that brings 
Postman Morning to the gate 
Where my heart and I await. 



183 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
LIGHTING THE FLOWERS 

GREEN memory with her taper came 
To touch the lily into flame; 
Hope gave the morning-glory light 
As the last shadow left the night; 
Truth to the lilac's petals brought 
The purple fire of stately thought. 

Fancy the gay marshmallows flared 
With kisses where its torches glared 
Against the swamp's green curtain, fine 
With clambering frond and climbing vine; 
Joy, in the autumn meadows trod, 
Lighting with bloom the golden-rod. 

Youth gave the modest violet birth 
Of blue-flame where it made the earth 
Sweet as a path to Paradise 
With the dear honey of its eyes. 
Love lit the rose — ah, with what fire 
Of old delight and young desire! 



184 



MARYLAND MAGIC 



THE MOONLIGHT HILLS OF MARYLAND 

AFAR in lines of shadow, 
Away in shapes of gray, 
The sweet old hills of Maryland 

In silvery moonlight stray. 
The harvest moon of autumn, 

Beneath her tender smile, 
The hills of gray, away, away. 
Stretch on for mile and mile. 

Oh, the moonhght hills of Maryland, 

The dells where shadows dance; 
How sweet they lie, so still and shy, 
In the autumn- time romance! 

Calm as a stalwart sentry. 

The old hills stand and wait; 
The moonlight falls, the night-gwl calls 

Far through the valley gate. 
A moonlit land of beauty, 

A hill-sweet land of song, 
O land of bosomed waters, 

Where the old bay rolls along — 
For me the autumn glory, 

The night of harvest moon, 
The moonlit hill, the valleys still, 
The heart of all in tune! 

Gray in the autumn shadow. 
In wavering lines they sweep, 
187 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

While round them dance in soft romance 

The shades of vale and deep. 
The sweet old hills of glory, 

Beneath the moon how fair; 
Away, away, in Hnes of gray, 
I love to see them there. 

Oh, the moonlight hills of Maryland, 

Wherever I may be, 
I know through all that they will call, 
Those dear old hills, to me! 

HOLLY HALL 

A LITTLE way from the end o' town and 'round by the 
river bending; 
A little lad of the barefoot day where the dusty road goes 

wending; 
A little dream in the heart of him and a vision that upbore 

him — 
And Holly Hall in its glory all down the boxwood lane before 

him! 
A comrade near and a song of cheer and a world of dreaming, 

wishing, 
The river there and the fresh sweet air and the whole world 

gone off fishing! 

A Httle way from the end o' town and 'round by the winding 

river. 
The haw and the fox grape rip'ning there when the winds 

of autumn shiver; 

i88 



HOLLY HALL 



The mansion dreaming beneath the trees and the weird 

vault crumbling near it, 
Where the venture of the boyhood heart played boldly not 

to fear it; 
The wilding rose and the clambering vine and the unknown 

grace and glory 
That filled the stern and stately place with stern and stately 

story. 

A little way from the end o' town, the Maypole by the man- 
sion; 

The old, sweet day of the fairy lay and the charm of the robin's 
chanson; 

The great old barn with its lofts where lay the timothy and 
clover, 

And romping children all the day the sweet piles tumbled 
over; 

The wide, cool hall, where a team might turn and the grand 
old shade trees bending, 

Where dance and dream on the fairy lawn and dream and 
dance were blending. 

A little way from the end o ' town — in boyhood's day of won- 
der, 

Oh, happy hours in the orchards there and the great verandas 
under, 

The little stile and the driveway gate and the green park's 
bridge and ditches 

And the instant thought of a weird romance and a house of 
the haunting witches! 
189 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

A little way from the end o' town — ^in the soft, sweet shadows 

gleaming, 
O Holly Hall, do the larks still call and the days go by you 

dreaming? 

A little way from the end o' town — a little lad by the river, 
Where the paw-paws sweeten in the san and the cattails 

sway and quiver; 
A little way down the dusty road — oh, how our hearts would 

bristle 
When we carved the lintels of the vault with our own and a 

girl's initial! 
A little way from the end o' town — to the old days thoughts 

go sweeping, 
Holly Hall, are the roses there and the vines still 'round 

your creeping? 

SPRING ON THE SEVERN 

SPRING is on the Severn and the dogwood's flash of light 
Is like a frequent signpost that the woods have painted 
white; 
You turn a ferny corner, and it Hes before your eyes, 
The blue tide of the Severn like the blue of springtime skies. 
The blue tide of the Severn, 

Ah, that haunting, happy stream. 
Where the sweet boats seek the landing 
Of the magic world of dream! 

The laurel in the copses lights its flame of pink and red. 
The wild azalea blossoms in the pathway just ahead, 

190 



KENT ISLAND 



The mockingbirds are singing in the cedars by the shore, 
And twilight brings the bugle of the hermit thrush once more. 
And twilight brings the bugle 

Of that bird the Severn hears 
Down all the tranquil distance 
Like old music set to tears! 

A motorboat is puffing from the Indian Landing down 
To reach some wharf of traffic under old Annapolis town; 
The mists o'er Round Bay rising turn to silver in the sun — 
Oh, yes, 'tis spring on Severn, and the beauty play's begun. 
Oh, yes, 'tis spring on Severn, 

Where the spring comes all so sweet 
That you scarcely hear the patter 
Of her dear, unstockinged feet! 



KENT ISLAND 

SIXTEEN miles of sweetness, and from Narrows to the bay, 
A garden of the bloom of life on jasmine lips of May! 
Sixteen miles of tender and of gentle life and rest 
Upon the bloom-bound borders of the broad bay's rolling 

breast: 
island of the dreamer in the land of violet, 
A turquoise brooch of beauty with the pink peach blossom set! 
Kent Island, sweet Kent Island, 

Bound round with tides that sweep 
In ribbons of bright silver 

From the floods that sing of sleep! 



191 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
ANTE-BELLUM 

OUT of a dwelling on Courtland street, 
Dandy and dapper and fine and neat, 
Steps a phantom of tender days 
That have drifted far in the mist and haze, 
With square frock coat and a queer tile hat. 
His walking stick and his sheepskin spat — 
A shadowy spirit of Baltimore 
In the dear old decades before the war! 

It is early ten of the old town clock. 

So he saunters on to the famous block 

Where the Place shines sweet in the morning glow 

Of that Baltimore of the Long Ago. 

Out of a doorway on Monument west. 

With a mauve-lined coat and a sealskin vest, 

A fellow-spirit steps forth to greet 

His shadowy comrade from Courtland street. 

And where shall my dandies go — ah me! — 
To spend their leisure till time for tea — 
Except for a sherry-cobbler spell 
By the bar at Barnum's old hotel? 
Or the Maltby House, or the Fountain Inn, 
For a pony of rum or a drop of gin; 
And maybe a visit, whatever the treat. 
To the old Museum on Baltimore street? 

Prithee, the afternoon for a rub 
With their confreres at the Maryland Club, 

192 



ANTE-BELLUM 



Or the Athenaeum, at Franklin and Charles, 

Where in friendly banter and harmless quarrels, 

Buchanan's policy, stocks and balls, 

The arrogant habits of Jones' falls. 

Or the marvelous courage of Mayor Swann 

In opening Druid Hill, are talked till dawn! 

Maybe at five, for wine and cake, 

At Madam Latrobe's for the old time's sake; 

Or a ride, full slowly, and not so far. 

On the trolley's uncle — the old horse car! 

At night the Assembly ! or look, forsooth, 

There is Edwin Forrest or Junius Booth 

Giving a fine old Shakespeare play 

At the old Front Street in its palmy day! 

Coaches home o'er the Charles street hill; 
Night, with the revel of sweet days still; 
The silvery moon on Mount Vernon Place 
Peeping through windows of curtaining lace 
At love's good-night to the lips of sheen. 
With his arm stretched out o'er her crinoline 
To reach the tapering lips upheld 
For the courtly touch of his lips, dream-spelled! 

Gentle dandies and damsels fair 
In the shadowy Baltimore 'way back there, 
From Courtland street, and Monument west, 
With spats and tile and the sealskin vest, 
In nights of dreaming, how good to see 
Your gentle spirits of gleam and glee 

193 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Go in and out of the vineclad door 
Of the dear old decades before the war! 

CHARLES STREET IN THE FALL 

OH, to be on Charles street, on Charles street in the fall, 
To walk between the fountain and the shadow of 
St. Paul! 
Oh, to be on Charles street with other hearts that go 
Beneath the golden weather and the dreamy autumn glow! 
Good-day to all sweet faces and all sweet eyes that gleam 
When Charles street floats in glory of the golden autumn 
dream ! 

A tender charm has Charles stieet when brown-hat time is 

here. 
And in her purple velvets walks my Lady Vere de Vere, 
When Madame in her Stanhope to a Colonel on the stroll 
Makes a stately salutation with her lorgnette lifted droll; 
When Httle giggling ladies to the candy shops resort, 
And with a silver handle on his light cane walks the sport! 

Be sure to come to Charles street, to Charles street in the 

ray 
Of afternoons of beauty in the heart of autumn day; 
A merry place is Charles street when brown-hat times are 

here 
And in her purple velvets walks my Lady Vere de Vere, 
While all the giggling maidens, and all the elder beaux. 
Attend the call of Charles street in their brown October 

clothes! 

194 



THE CARDINAL'S YARD 



THE CARDINAL'S YARD 

A HYACINTH out in the Cardinal's yard? 
^~^ The tulips in ring and in row? 
The daffodils dancing their bonnets starred 

Soft with the saffron glow? 
Then it is spring, indeed. 

Then it is spring in town, 
In that street so sweet 
Where the bright throngs meet 

And the traffic goes up and down. 

The catkins out on the Cardinal's trees? 

The poplars ready to bud? 
Up, to the tune and the tang of the breeze, 

With the springtime in the blood! 
For it is spring no doubt. 

Harbingers fail not there 
In that quiet nook 
Where with scroll and book 

The spirit is taking the air. 

Tho wind may whistle a little while. 

And March may roar its best, 
But ever the soul of the spring doth smile 

Where the Cardinal takes his rest, 
If he has hyacinths, then. 

Never you mind the cold. 
From that central sun 
Like a bloom 'twill run 

From the jonquil's chalice of gold. 

195 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Patiently waiting the throng swings by, 

And threading its path his Grace 
Comes in the afternoon for a try 

Of the sun in the sweet old Place. 
Suddenly, some one stops. 

And there in the quaint old beds — 
Though the blast blows hard — 
In the CardinaPs yard 

The tulips are bobbing their heads. 

MARYLAND GARDEN 

WHAT is Maryland but a garden for the first born of 
today — 
A golden, gleaming garden from the mountains to the bay; 
A dreaming, drowsing garden with an ever-blooming rose/ 
On her cheeks of velvet beauty and her lips of calm repose? 
Maryland garden, Maryland garden. 
Round and over sweet with sweet 
Of the dew on morning hillsides 
And the gleam of wave-washed feet! 

What is Maryland but a garden? — ^Ah, beloved, what a land 
For the dancing of the spirit and the clasping of the hand; 
For the bloom o' morning glory and the dusk- wing on the hill, 
Where the Bob White joins the chorus of the plaintive whip- 
poorwill! 

Maryland garden, Maryland garden, 

Let me clasp and let me cling, 
Oh, my dream of world and wonder, 
To thy April heart of spring! 
196 



MARYLAND GARDEN 



What is Maryland but a garden? And we love it and we 

sing 
Of its orchard lands of summer and its berry fields of spring; 
Of its harvest leagues of autumn and its winters of delight, 
With the sleighbells jingling silvery down the amaranthine 
night: 

Maryland garden, Maryland garden, 

Where are roses such as thine, 
By the gates that lure the lovers 
And the porches of the vine! 

What is Maryland but a garden of the wondrous gift of 

grace 
Which the Maker of all gardens shined upon with morning 

face? 
What is Maryland but a garden, where with lessening haste 

and strife, 
We have grown the bloom of beauty for the lifting up of 
life? 

Maryland garden, Maryland garden, 

On thy hills and 'neath thy trees 
Morning blows on crystal bugles 
Life's eternal melodies ! 



197 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
SEPTEMBER TIDE 

FLOOD tide on the marshes and the Susquehanna flats, 
The reedbirds fat as butter and the damp air full of 
gnats, 
A popping in the wild oats where the smoothbores bang their 

best. 
And Mr. Reed Bird folding both his wings and gone to rest; 
September tide in Maryland, 

With the blackbirds in the corn. 
And the wild oats filled with gunners 
Where the gray mists drape the morn! 

A light skiff and a negro with a long pole in his hand, 

A green world and a quiet where the deep marsh binds the 

land. 
The belching of a battery and a smoke-wreath curHng on, 
Where Mr. Rail Bird flutters and his warm blood streaks 
the dawn: 

September tide in Maryland, 

Oh, pole dat boat along. 
The whispering winds bring morning 
And a far lark's lonesome song! 

Chin deep at old Elk Landing, and the ripples lave the dike 
Where in the sunup shadows in a bateau drifts a tike 
Whose tousled head goes bobbing as around the curlews 

scoot 
And he lifts a muzzle-loader that wiU kick as far as shoot: 



198 



TALKING TALBOT 



September tide in Maryland — 

Up the river comes the fleet; 
The reedbird's fat as butter, 

And the railbird's butter-sweet! 

A roasted sweet potato and a corn pone on the way, 
Pole hard, you lazy Rastus, or we'll drift down to the bay; 
Flood tide on the marshes, and the blackbirds in the corn, 
The wild oats leagues a-rustle with the breezes of the morn: 
September tide in Maryland. 

With a bing-bang left and right. 
And the great breechloaders roaring. 
And the young day dreaming light! 

TALKING TALBOT 

SPRING is talking Talbot, and the bloom is on the bay, 
The winds are whispering Talbot, and it's time to take 
the train; 
My eyes are full of Talbot, and my heart is far away 

Amid the Talbot orchards where the pink peach blossoms 
rain: 
Spring is talking Talbot, and its Talbot time for me; 
Pull in the gangplank. Captain, let us seek the rosy sea! 

Spring is talking Talbot unto other ears than mine, 
Ah, brothers of the shoreland you are dreaming of her, too; 

Her grace of April beauty and her orchards and her vine, 
Her rivers singing sweetly and her bending skies of blue! 

Spring is talking Talbot in that old bird talk we love — 

The stern line's over. Captain, and the stars are bright above 1 

199 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE OLD BATEAU 

THERE'S an old bateau 
On the flats of Chester river, 
And it swings o'er the beds 

Where the fattest oysters he; 
In the night all the stars 

In their beauty shine and quiver, 
And a tonger sings a ballad 
To the beauty of the sky. 
An old bateau, 

That they've oystered in forever: 
And the low winds in the sails 
Sing across the Chester river! 

When the ducks come around 

On the flats of Susquehanna, 

They will take the old bateau 

And they'll fly away for fair; 

Their heads wrapped up 

In a red bandanna. 
And the frosty rime of winter 
In their yellow locks of hair. 
An old bateau, 

All the Susquehanna season 
It will scout along the blinds 
Without compass, rule or reason! 

If you love the smell of salt 
And the sting of salty weather, 

200 



i 



THE STATE HOUSE STAIRS 

When the wind's in the west 

And the ice is making up, 
You will love the old bateau, 

As we smoke a pipe together 
And drink a toast together 
From the rusty toddy cup. 
An old bateau, 

Just as good as when we bought her, 
And the romance in her soul 
Of the Chesapeake water! 

THE STATE HOUSE STAIRS 

WHAT shadows climb, with mincing airs. 
Before me up the State House stairs? 
What phantoms fiit before the sight 
All in a dew of dreamy light? 
Swart Cavalier, or lace-sleeved squire. 
The hill has made His Grace perspire. 
But at the top — ah, dear Sir Gruff — 
He stops to take a pinch of snuff! 

What sessions have we? Who are these 

That come with buckles at their knees. 

White silken hose and velvet ruffs 

And silver latchen on their cuffs; 

Quaint hats, with brims three-quarter turned, 

And cheeks whereon the sun has burned 

Red roses of a dream of health, 

Or vixen fingers pinched by stealth? 

20I 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Glad statesmen, come! I see them climb 
From out the shades of olden time. 
The barges from their old estates 
Toss at the Severn's water gates, 
And here with wisdom we shall see 
The fate of goodman Stewart's tea: 
The spirit of the age is young, 
And holy Heaven has fired the tongue! 

What sparks trip here, what maids glance there, 
Ah, phantoms of the State House stair! 
What dames from Duke of Gloucester street 
Their shadows of the old days meet. 
And talk plantation, or the chase. 
Or watch with ever-changing face 
The masters of the fate of kings 
Stoop down to lace their doublet strings! 

Hi-day! the State House on the hill 
Looks o'er the silvery Severn still. 
As in those rosy hours of dream 
When Richard Carvel crossed the stream! 
And as they go, where rose-light glares — 
Those shadows on the State House stairs — 
Still in the windows drift forlorn 
Faint echoes of the huntsman's horn! 

Ta-lara! I shall see them now 
Dispose of things of state, somehow, 
And spring to horse, while hearts unlock, 
With feathers in their hats a-cock, 

202 



THE HONEYMAN 



As o'er the hills and far away 
The voices of the bugles say: 
"The fox uncovers! Ride, ride, ride!" 
And there they go by Severn tide! 

THE HONEYMAN 

CUBES of sweet from dews of sun 
On a stall in Lexington! 
Scented still with breath of clover 
Which the busy bees roamed over — 
Here it waits till some one buys 
All it holds of bloom and skies, 
Far-off fields and lanes of gleam 
Where winged beauty dreams her dream! 

"Here's your honey, spick and span!" 
Cries the red-cheeked honeyman; 
But he recks not what he sells 
In that comb of amber spells; 
Little dreaming how it brings 
Songs of summer, flash of wings. 
Meadows drowsing, hills serene, 
Round the dewy dells of green! 

Oh, the honey, dripping down 
On a market stall in town! 
Mr. Honeyman, here's money. 
Not because you sell me honey, 
But because the comb I buy 
Brings the blue of bloom and sky, 
203 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

And the sound and scent and sight 
Of belov-ed peace and light! 

Honey white and honey yellow, 

Fit for Prince or Punchinello; 

Clover honey, dew of amber. 

Where the wild vines creep and clamber; 

Honey dripping from the comb, 

Wrap it up and take it home; 

For the honeyman has sold us 

Dews that in sweet dreams will fold us! 

HINCHLIFFE'S STORE 

IF I could have my way, proud world, 
The fairy touch, the magic skill. 
Not all thy banners o'er me furled 

Could tempt my feet like Partridge Hill; 
Could lure me here or lead me there, 

As do the dreams of days of yore, 
When boyhood's bubbles glimmered fair 
Round the old stove in Hinchliffe's store! 

The cases where the jew's-harps lay. . 

The jackknives and the tops and toys; 
The nickel novels, filled with fray 

Of Indian warfare's wildwood joys; 
The sticks of Hcorice, gum drops too, 

The caramels of days galore. 
When, comrades of the dering-do. 

We priced things down at Hinchliffe's store! 
204 



SNOW UPON THE HILLS 



Crowning the ''Hollow," there it shone, 

The courthouse near, the old hotel, 
Dear rendezvous for boyhood fun 

And the sweet, necromantic spell; 
Baseballs and bats, such tops — ah, me, 

The ''weeklies" tacked up by the door; 
The old stove, and around it, see! 

The droppers-in at Hinchliffe's store! 

Such shelvesful of delightful things. 

Such pipes, such fishing tackle — why, 
Give me today youth's magic wings. 

There is the one place I would fly! 
Back to the old town, sweet and still. 

The main street, with its maple lore. 
The "Hollow," and the winding hill, 

***** And Hinchliffe's store! 



SNOW UPON THE HILLS 

THE snow is on the Frederick hills, and I can see it shine 
All up the slopes of rugged oak and up the steeps of 
pine. 
Catoctin's breast is white tonight, a mantle soft as dew 
Cloaks with the silence of a dream those distant peaks of 
blue. 

The snow upon the Frederick hills, 

The quiet vales, ah me. 
Once more their spell upon me thrills 
With deathless witchery! 

205 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE OLD CAMPAIGNERS 

O'ER Partridge Hill and up the Hollow, 
While Boydom's joy-filled cohorts follow, 
They come, the old campaigners there, 
With roll of drum and torchHght's glare, 
With shoulder capes and caps that shine 
Down all the dancing lights in line; 
Down Main street 'neath the maple trees — 
Hats off to phantoms such as these! 

Around the Courthouse now they crowd 
To strains of "Hail Columbia" loud. 
The old campaigners; there they glow 
In fervor of the long ago; 
Home-driven doctrines from the stump. 
Between the bass drum's thump-a- thump; 
The falling leaves, the fanfare sweet 
Of marchers in the old Main street! 

Away — away — away again, 
Those Boydom ranks, those files of men; 
Down Partridge Hill and up the Hollow, 
While all the lads of old times follow; 
Around the Courthouse, up the street, 
The music of those marching feet. 
The earnest impulse of those ranks. 
That festal age of boyhood pranks! 

They come, the old campaigners come, 
To sound of fife and roll of drum; 

206 



DEAR MARYLAND SKIES 



Free Soil, or Whig, or what you will, 
The line ascends the green old hill, 
The torches gleam, the capes are gay. 
The oilcloth caps make bright array: 
Who's speaking? Ah, that golden fire 
Of tongues that flayed the foe with ire! 

Hurrah! they're coming. Don't you see 
The lads that round the torches flee. 
Like junebugs bobbing in a light 
Where windows gleam on summer's night! 
Up Main street, boys, and down Lort's lane. 
And round through Back street, till again 
Through High or Bow they reach the hollow. 
While o'er the hiU the braw lads follow! 



DEAR MARYLAND SKIES 

NO other skies are like thy skies, 
No other blue is Hke their blue; 
No other light so softly lies 

As on thy vales of dream and dew; 
No other April comes so sweet 

Along the hills of faint perfume, 
As thine when on her purple feet 
She walks as velvet as a bloom: 

Dear Maryland skies, dear hills of gold, 
Dear valleys of the days of old; 
Dear dale and dingle, field and stream 
Beneath dear Maryland skies of dream! 
207 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

ANNAPOLIS 

HERE is the city that lies away 
Under the shadows of yesterday, 
An old-time, quiet, sleepy town, 
Where the lanes lead on and the streets dip down 
To the silvery sweep of the dreaming tide 
Of the Severn, noble and blue and wide, 
And love and beauty and romance dwell 
In the tender charm of their eerie spell! 

Here is the city that came to hand 

When the lords of the manor ruled the land, 

And they built the houses of brick that came 

From English kilns — sweet halls of fame 

That stand today as they stood of old 

In dreams of glory that hide and fold 

The white wide doors and the wainscot-wall 

And the fan-light windows and carven hall! 

Duke of Gloucester and Prince and King — 
Ah, streets that dream 'neath the golden wing 
Of quaint, far fancy and ancient pride 
Of the pompous burghers and dignified! 
Sir Richard Carvel among them there 
With his silken hose and his powdered hair. 
The lordly Carroll, and Smallwood great. 
And Chase of the vast and fine estate! 

Here is the city that stays to tell 
Of the past, with its dream and charm and spell, 

208 ' 



THE PHANTOM SHIP 



That holds quaint shadows amid the strife 

Of that yesterday with its golden life 

Of squire and gentry and chase and dance 

To the fiddle tunes of the old romance, 

When rose-sweet ladies, with lips rose-red. 

Bloomed bright in the gardens whose bloom hath fled! 

Here is the city — and let it be 
A city of shadows and dreams for me: 
Quaint and quiet and sweet and old. 
With the age that ripens like mellow gold, 
The fruit and flower of its past, its pride, 
Its lanes that lead to the Severnside, 
Its storied mansions, its still retreat. 
Where St. Ann's rests by the circling street! 



THE PHANTOM SHIP 

A BALTIMORE clipper sailed up last night along the old 
seacoast. 
And the lookout down by Cape Charles hght was sure that 

he saw a ghost; 
She came full sail at a fair wind gait, and her freeboard cut 

the foam. 
And she turned in the bay as much as to say: "I'm a Balti- 
more boat, bound home!" 
A Baltimore clipper sailed up last night 

Far out of the bygone years; 
And they made her fast in the ports of Light, 
A ghost at the phantom piers. 

209 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Her bottom was barnacled deep and wide and up to the water 

line, 
And the rust on her keel had felt the kiss of the lips of the 

world-wide brine, 
And her sails had swung in the winds of east and cracked in 

the winds of west, 
And her belly had laid on the tropic wave where the impudent 
mermaids rest: 
A Baltimore clipper, a phantom ship, 

With coffee and spice on board; 
A queen of the world and its seven seas wide, 
Bound home by the grace of the Lord! 

A Baltimore clipper sailed up last night to the docks she used 

to know, 
Lade with molasses from Porto Rique, as oft in the Long 

Ago; 
Queen of the ships of the merchant trade, and seeking her 

cargoes far, 
Under the moon of the wild Azore and under the Polar star: 
A Baltimore clipper came up, came on. 

Full sail by the old seacoast, 
And the lookout dreamed till the break of dawn 
That his eyes had seen a ghost! 

Merchantmen down at the Indian Queen when Hanover 

street was young, 
A Baltimore clipper is sighted down by the capes in whose 

tides she has swung; 
The wharves will rattle with Hfe at dawn, and how they will 

barter and sell, 

2IO 



I 



MISS TABBY'S SCHOOL 



And down at the Museum spend the night to the song and 
the dancer's spell: 
A Baltimore clipper, an ocean queen, 

Ah, nobly she came last night — 
And the grass on Federal Hill is green, 
And there's coffee and spice at Light! 

MISS TABBY'S SCHOOL 

BESIDE the little street it stood, 
In shade of elm and maple — 
That fountain where our youngsterhood 

Quaffed learning's crystal staple. 
Beside the dreaming road of dream, 

Gray with the weather's staining — 
And still its shadowy tenants stream 
Through fancy's golden reigning! 

Beside its garden and its stile. 

Its scented lilac border. 
Still Httle lips of shadow smile 

Through playtime's mild disorder; 
Beside its vanished dust that spells. 

For eyes of magic vision. 
Dear shapes that wear the asphodels 

In fairylands elysian! 

A weather-beaten gray old place. 

The schoolroom sweet and quiet. 
With just Miss Tabby's gentle face 

To frown on mischief's riot; 

211 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

The old desks carved with hearts and darts 

And names of half the village, 
To prove this school a school of parts 

For early mental tillage! 

A playground sweet beneath the shade 

Of tree and vine and berry, 
Where hearts of childhood swung and swayed 

Through many a recess merry; 
The gentle touch — when woe befell 

In playtime romp and grapple — 
Of that remembered heahng-spell, 

Miss Miirtha's balsam apple! 

Beside the road its dust is blown. 

Its lichened walls have vanished; 
But in our hearts, by memory sown, 

Its vision dwells unbanished! 
Still up those stairs in childhood's morn 

Of hope and song and glory, 
I climb, as though 'twere still unborne — 

Life's struggle and its story! 

Beside its steps old comrades sing, 

And little faces glisten, 
When memory takes the cord to ring 

Lost bells for which we listen; 
All down the street the shadows dance 

Those bells have called to session 
Of dear Miss Tabby's gentle glance 

Through lesson after lesson! 

212 



THE LILY LADY 



Its dust is blown; its day is o'er; 

But dreams are so delightful 
Of little childhoods, when they pour 

The whole, long summer night full! 
And bring us back, and leave us there, 

With hearts for knowledge yearning, 
Beside the teacher's desk and chair 

In life's first seat of learning! 

THE LILY LADY 

1HAVE ta'en the lily hand of this lady for a dance, 
Though she be no more than fancy in a region of romance; 
With my heart beneath her feet I will let her waltz tonight. 
Though she be the merest phantom in a moon of lily light; 
I have met her but a moment, I have known her but an hour, 
But her beauty sets me burning and her lips are like a flower! 

She hath smiled so long unnoticed in this portrait that I hold 
That the sunlight of her smiling leaves its tarnish on the gold 
Of the httle frame around her — so I kneel and take her hand, 
Though she be a Hly vision in a lane of fairyland; 
She shall crush me, she shall slay me, so she lets me linger near 
In the shadow of her beauty from a moon of yesteryear! 

I have seen her only once, but she lures me with her light; 
I have ta'en her lily hand and I've sworn to be her knight; 
She shall have her olden manor on the borders of the Wye, 
And the silver songs of bugles shall awake again the cry 
Of the hunters who have vanished and the hounds that bay 

no more 
Adown the glens of Talbot and beside the master's door! 

213 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Was she dreaming in this portrait? I will wake her: she shall 
come 

Where the tinkling banjos murmur and the phantom fiddles 
hum; 

Her heart shall bloom with April and her cheeks shall burn 
with May — 

Ah, laugh, my lily lady, we have come to yesterday! 

Those lips where dust hath drifted, I shall kiss them through 
and through 

Till they glow with youthful ardor and are fresh with morn- 
ing dew! 

I have ta'en her lily hand, I have brought Her Grace a rose, 
And we'll dance in dreams tonight while the silver music 

flows; 
This lady of my portrait, in her Httle burnished frame. 
With none to tell her story and with none to breathe her 

name; 
Though she be an eerie shadow from a page of old romance, 
I have ta'en the lily hand of this lady for a dance! 

Blow again, ye silver bugles! Wake, ye mansions by the 

stream ! 
With my heart beneath her feet she shall dance and I shall 

dream! 
Come, ye masters of the manors, and ye gentry of the Wye, 
The grace of April morning is a dew within her eye! 
I have ta'en her lily hand, and she steps from out her frame, 
And my heart is at her service and my soul is burning flame! 



214 



STRAWBERRY MAN 



STRAWBERRY MAN 

STRAWBERRY man's at the backyard gate, 
Just as you thought you would sleep till late: 
Strawberry, strawberry — yonder he goes, 
Strawberry music and strawberry clothes, 
Strawberry dreams of the strawberry red 
As you banish your stupor and bounce out of bed: 
Strawberry patches and leagues of sky. 
Blue of the world where the bay rolls by; 
Sunshine and shadow, and drifted between 
The quiet old woods with their infinite green. 

Strawberry music through alleys of town 
When the strawberry man with his wagon comes down; 
Fresh from the patches, the dew on the vine, 
Up in the morning from old Caroline: 
Strawberry, strawberry — ah, what a call. 
When down to your dreaming the wings of it fall: 
Strawberry pickers in fields of the day, 
Touched with the charm and the chant of the bay; 
Sing through the alley and hammer the gate, 
Ah, Arab of dream from the gardens of fate! 



215 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
OYSTER WHARVES AT CRISFIELD 

I HEARD a tugboat blowing in the harbor tide of Light, 
I saw a bugeye flying like a flying isle of night; 
I smelt the old bay blow in a wind of dreaming back, 
And down I sailed to Crisfield on the dear old Tangier track. 
The oyster wharves of Crisfield, 

The pungies there that ride: 
The blue bay of the Chesapeake, 
The sweet old Tangier tide! 

I heard the shuckers singing in the oyster houses far 
Beneath the Tangier glory of the moon and of the star; 
I heard the waters lapping at the old wharves far away, 
And when the tugboats whistled I was dreaming down the 
bay. 

The oyster wharves of Crisfield, 

Huge shell piles in the sun. 
Where boyhood laughed at trouble 
And turned hardship into fun! 

You know that scent of oysters around an oyster town? 
It came to me all blowing when the echo drifted down 
Of bayboats in the harbor and a Tangier smack, perhaps. 
Tied by the piers of Canton where the dark tide swings and 
laps. 

The oyster wharves of Crisfield, 

The hurry there, and life. 
With Tangier's blue tide rolling 

Down the long blue miles from strife! 

216 



CAMBRIDGE 



The old fleet still goes sailing, the dredges click and clink, 
The homebound boats are coming through the twilight now, 

I think; 
There's life lived rough and ready, and many an oath and 

blow, 
But Tangier smooths the darkness with the beauty of her 
glow. 

The oyster wharves of Crisfield, 

Through mists of sweet they loom, 
Piled high with shells all winter 

Crowned with the snow's white bloom! 

Whene'er a tugboat whistles, or hoarse- voiced hner toots, 
I take the white-winged bugeye of my dreaming where she 

scoots, 
And down the old dominion of the blue bay once again 
We seek the town of Crisfield and the port of Tangier men. 
The oyster wharves of Crisfield, 
The shucker's song, the smell. 
The Sound's sweet fleet in motion 
And the Chesapeake's blue spell! 

CAMBRIDGE 

SING of the cities by seas of song, 
But mine is the Chop tank tide, 
With Cambridge sitting upon its shore — 

Cambridge, the Choptank's bride! 
Ah! what nuptials in days of old, 
That marriage of town and stream, 

217 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

With shadows of beauty to bind them round 
With banners and blooms of dream! 
Cambridge there on the Choptank shore, 

By that noble sheet of water, 
Kissed by the lips of the singing sea 
Of the Chesapeake's noblest daughter! 

Hurry and hasten and what you will, 
But finding more beauty and grace. 
Ah, where will you gather them under the sun 

In any more beautiful place! 
Oh! what morning it must have been 
When this sweet bride came down 
To marry her lord of the Hving green 
Of the gardens of Cambridge town! 

Cambridge, there in her growth and pride, 

Busy and fine and sweet. 
With Sunday, the old and young beside. 
For a walk down the old High street ! 

Come up the river in summer's morn 

With the Avalon churning the foam, 
With Cambridge facing the rising sun 

And smiling to greet you home ! 
Hambrook's dreaming adown the shore, 

Under its noble trees, 
And far in the distance the blue bay rolls 

To arms of the distant seas! 

Cambridge, spunky and up-to-date, 
With ever the spirit there 



218 



FIELDS OF THE GREEN TOBACCO 

Of ancient families and great estates, 
And the old, romantic air! 

Sing of the cities by seas of song, 

But mine be the Chop tank river, 
With Cambridge sloping to meet the tide. 

And the old homes sweet forever! 
The water front, with its oyster boats. 
And that golden farmland yonder, 
Where the beautiful hearts of the country beat 
And the dreams of Dorset wander! 
Cambridge, beautiful, golden bride 
Of the beautiful Choptank water; 
And the blue bay singing away, away 
Of its love for its beautiful daughter! 

FIELDS OF THE GREEN TOBACCO 

IN the fields of the green tobacco my heart is away, away. 
In the fields of the green tobacco where the winds of the 
summer play; 
The bloom of the stalks is nodding and over the fields it 

glows 
Like the first faint pink of morning when it walks on the 
feet of rose. 

Oh, down in the fields of Calvert, 

And under St. Mary's skies. 
The world of the green tobacco 
In the heart of the summer lies! 



219 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

In the fields of the green tobacco they are singing on Hps that 

croon 
The songs of the sainted summers\n seas of the isles of June; 
The hoers swing to the ditty and the young plants seem to 

leap 
At the touch of the dew and sunshine from the spell of an 
ancient sleep. 
Oh, yonder in green Prince George's 

And ever on Calvert's strand, 

It's the fields of the green tobacco 

That glory the fertile land! 

Acres of cool, green beauty, noble and stately stalks, 
The rich broad leaf of glory, the bloom on the tip that talks 
Of suns in a sweetheart summer that stole to the leaf and stem 
With glory to kiss to fruitage the flavor that sleeps in them. 
Thy fields are in bloom, St. Mary's, 

And Calvert's are fine, are fine; 
And the dream of the green tobacco 
In the fields of the green is mine! 

THE OLD MAIN LINE 

TWENTY miles from Baltimore, then the world begins, 
Like a quiet sacramant after city dins; 
Hills upon the left hand, river on the right 
Ripphng in its rocky bed on the way to Ught! 
Twenty miles from Baltimore, swinging to the west — 
All aboard for valley dreams and the lanes of rest; 
All aboard for granite hills and the glens of green, 
With the lovely waterfalls leaping down between: 

220 



THE OLD MAIN LINE 



Woodstock, Sykesville, Woodbine and away, 

Up and over Parr's Ridge, panting hard for steam; 

Frederick Junction, Winchester, then the shadows gray 
And the lands of witchery in the vales of dream! 

Twenty miles from Baltimore, creeping on we go, 
Up the old main thoroughfare of the B. & O. 
Winding as the stream winds, trailing through the blue 
Of the rifted sky Kne and the hills of dew: 
All aboard for bloomland, curving in and out, 
Through the April wheatfields and the orchard rout. 
Jonquils in the springtime, and with dainty head 
Hepatica to greet you from her clef ted rocky bed: 
Orange Grove, Ilchester, Gaither's and the hills. 

Mount Airy on the summits with the blossoms and the 
breeze; 
Bartholow's and Ijamsville — now her whistle shrills 
Across the muddy river as it windeth to the seas ! 

Twenty miles from Baltimore, here the daisies shine, 
Buttercups and laurelbloom and the columbine; 
Miles of mossy lichens, the bluet, and for sure 
Arbutus in the melting drift, waxen white and pure: 
All aboard for Relay, here's the valley train, 
Roaring round the long loops, in and out again; 
Plunging in the tunnel-mouth, out and then away 
To the golden hilltops of the golden day: 

Point of Rocks, Catoctin, Harper's Ferry, ho! 
Bounding by the towpath fearlessly and fine, 

Through the happy homelands merrily we go, 
A hundred miles of beauty on the old main line! 

221 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE RED-CLAY HILLS OF CECIL 

THE red-clay hills of Cecil, and the valleys at their feet, 
Where cricks and rivers ripple to the broad bay singing 
sweet. 
The cattle in the bottoms, where the natural meadows lie, 
Like the peaceful purple pastures of the land of sunny sky; 
The grain fields and the orchards and the marshes of the reed, 
Where the old sandpiper whistles and the railbird loves to 
feed: 
The red-clay hills of Cecil, 

Where the crocus starts the spring. 
And God's glory walks in blossom 
Till frost folds the gentian's wing! 

The red-clay hills of Cecil, and the scrub-pine barren lands 
Where the wild blackberries ripen in a world of blistering 

sands; 
The clean-cut, thrifty homesteads, and the rolling seas of 

grain. 
Where the summer sifts its sunshine and the green corn drinks 

the rain ; 
The farms beside the river, and the Big Elk gleaming there, 
While the brave Sir Peter Parker's ghostly comrades grin and 

stare: 

The red-clay hills of Cecil 

And the lovely leagues between. 

Where the smile of nature ripples 
Into vales of living green! 



222 



THE RED-CLAY HILLS OF CECIL 

The red -clay hills of Cecil, and the plateaus stretching fine 
Where the happy homes of beauty 'neath the sweet clematis 

shine : 
The mill wheels singing merry by the streams that saunter 

down 
To the dreamy boatyard landing and the wharves of old 

French town; 
The song of Octaroro and the school at Nottingham, 
And the mem'ry of old Marley, with the wastegate and the 

dam: 

The red-clay hills of Cecil, 

Where the hope of youth revives, 

And the lips of love are calling 
Down the dales of happy lives! 

The red-clay hills of Cecil and the Blue Ball road for me, 
The old Bohemia Manor and the picnic groves of glee; 
Brick Meeting House; and yonder, with its far-off signal 

light, 
A Philadelphia steamer up the old canal at night; 
The old Principio furnace, and the broad-based granite hill. 
With its head at Port Deposit and its feet at Perryville: 

The red-clay hills of Cecil, 

And in March beneath the snow 

The frail arbutus blossom, 
With its faint pink lips a-blow! 

The red-clay hills of Cecil — call me back again, again, 
O sweet, old Cecil voices, with your tender heart-refrain! 



223 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

The cattle in the meadows and the uplands waving sweet 
With the rolling, golden billows of the heavy-headed wheat; 
The cricks that turn the mill wheels, and from Plum Point 

to the bay 
A song of dreamful summers in the lanes of boyhood day: 
The red-clay hills of Cecil, 

And a towhead whistling down 
Where the moonbeams of the fairy 
Light his path into the town! 

BENEATH THE TREES OF DRUID HILL 

PARK 

BENEATH the trees of Druid Hill Park, 
That cloistral shade, how fine 
The old seclusion of the wood, 

The greenness of the vine! 
Beneath the oaks that talk of time 

As if an age were nought, 
And light was but a fleeting breath, 
And joy a passing thought. 

Beneath the trees of Druid Hill Paik, 

What noble friends they are; 
Set in their silence and their peace 

From strife and conflict far! 
They stretch gaunt arms as if to say 

Come, brother, let us walk. 
And, oh, how sweet their fluttering leaves 

Unto the sunlight talk! 
224 



BENEATH THE TREES 



Beneath the trees of Druid Hill Park 

'Tis always Sunday morn, 
And far amid the forest depths 

An Oberon sounds his horn. 
The fairies hear, the fairies come, 

Or well it might be so, 
For underneath these sheltering boughs 

Are swards the fairies know. 

Beneath the trees of Druid Hill Park, 

Oh, doth not care depart, 
And joy come dancing o'er the lea. 

And merry grow the heart! 
Beyond this peace the city lies 

With all its strife and trouble. 
But here the trees are green and glad 

And gay the fountains bubble. 

Beneath the trees of Druid Hill Park, 

Oh, such a spell of rest! 
With such a sweet and green retreat 

Were ever city blest! 
The birds rejoice from branch to branch, 

The gentle beasties play, 
And all the crust of cark and care 

Is but as yesterday! 



225 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

FROSTBURG 

HOW they began it I cannot say, 
But they started a path and it ran away 
Till it climbed the hill at the mountain's feet, 
And it grew from a path to a little street 
Where ever and ever so long ago 
In the dawn's and the twilight's gentle glow 
The miners crept — with their head-lamps burning- 
To the mine-mouths far in the mountain's turning, 
Looking for all the world like eyes 
Moving along 'twixt the fields and skies. 

How you get up to it, on my word, 

It's likely you fly, like a mounting bird; 

For, ever the trolley winds up the hill 

Through a gap all grand and a gorge all still. 

By a farm ail golden with garnered grain. 

And a blue ridge yonder, a bird's refrain, 

A crystal torrent, a mud-stained funnel 

Where the water pours out of the great mine-tunnel. 

Emptying its saffron and sulphur-stained stream 

In the cups of the valleys of mist and dream. 

Still on the trolley, and still we rise. 
Till it's just reach out and you'll touch the skies; 
Then all of a sudden it's right straight up 
And we've climbed clear over the rim of the cup. 
And there — by the Great Taskmaster's will — 
We have come to a city upon a hill, 

226 



THE HILLS OF HOWARD 

And the broad, live streets of a clean, fine town 
Where the blue skies bend so gently down. 
And there in his mighty and masterful way 
Old Savage stands guard at the gates of day ! 

THE HILLS OF HOWARD 

THE wintry hills of Howard, 
The granite ridges there, 
The old sweet hills ¥/hose springs and rills 

Go rippHng everywhere. 
Green in the garb of smnmer. 
Brown in the autmnn glow, 
And cold and drear, but, oh, so dear. 
My hills of drifted snow! 

The grand old hills of Howard, 

The sweet old verges, tipt 
With stately trees, where melodies 

Of streams sing silver-lipt. 
Far on they swerve in grandeur, 

Where stratas, fold on fold. 
Have reared these peaks whose splendor speaks 

In visions as of gold. 

The rock-girt hills of Howard, 

The deep, gray knobs of flint. 
The spurs that shine in serried line 

When sunset splendors glint. 
Flow on, dear stream, beneath them, 

Aroimd and o'er and through— 
227 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Oh, flashing stream of spray and beam 
With broad boughs over you! 

The ancient hills of Howard, 

So old, so bleak, so hoar. 
On whose sharp steeps the wind-cloud sweeps, 

The blasts break fierce and frore. 
The gentle slopes and rises. 

With sweet vales in between. 
Where in the spring the sunbeams bring 

The glory of the green! 

The romance hills of Howard, 

The home of romance-gleam. 
The haunts that hold the fairy gold, 

That dream the fairy dream. 
Their sweet old lambent beauty. 

Their soft old grace that shines 
In brake and brea and windy way. 

Wherein the woodbine twines! 

The fine old hills of Howard, 

That lift sublime and steep; 
The gray old rocks that meet the shocks 

Deep in their granite deep; 
Grand in their rugged beauty, 

Soft in their summer glow. 
And cold and drear, but, oh, so dear. 

My hills of drifted snow! 



228 



DEER CREEK VALLEY 



DEER CREEK VALLEY 

I SAW it in the afternoon 
Of June. 
In its loveliness it lay 
Down the heart of golden day, 
And the fields of ripened wheat, 
And the new-mown clover hay, 
Waving in the wind and heat 
Like an ocean of the faery 
Seemed so beautiful and airy, 
And so sweet! 

Here a bridge and there a ford, 

Then a sward, 
And a living checkerboard 
Of green fields in serried order 
Rimning round the valley's border, 
With the cattle switching flies 
In the pastures, and the skies 
Filled with galleons of foam 
Where the cloud-ships scurried home, 
And afar that perfect spell 
Of the silver, sleepy tinkHng 

Of a bell. 
Where the sheep across the meadow 
Moved in flocks of fleecy shadow 

Through the dell. 

In the golden dream I heard 
Every ripple's whispered word, 
229 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

And I saw the active people 
In the Httle town whose steeple 
Rose above the tallest trees 
Move in green utilities. 
There were little homes of dove 
In the clustered groves of love, 

And the slopes, 
And I knew at many a gate 
There were sweetheart lips to wait. 

Singing tropes. 

Every now and then a wreath 
Rose in smoke from fires beneath 
Little hillsides — there a lane 
Bowered in wildness twisted through 
Many a bloomy dell of dew. 
And a white road, where a wain 
Rolled to market in the dusk, 
Wound in miles of fairy musk 
Through the glad, sweet country down 
To some town. 

Sylvan beauty here expressed 

In the silver speech of rest, 
I am happy that it lay 
Like a dream before my way 

In that golden afternoon 
Of the June! 

For the camera of my heart 

Caught the picture, whole and part, 
230 



LOVE POINT 



And forever — with self pity — 
Mid the roaring, dusty city, 
I shall see the distant vision 
Of that vale of joy Ely^ian, 
Where the happy people dwell 
In the golden beauty-spell 
Of the Httle creek, the lane, 
Slopes of green, and old refrain 
Of the music of the spheres 
Drowning out the clambering noise 
Of our Babylonian joys, 

And the rippling through the years 

Of immitigable tears! 

LOVE POINT 

HERE comes the steamer, the lovers are here. 
Jack with his daisy and John with his dear; 
Soft crabs for dinner and, oh, what a dream, 
Peachcake for supper, and then the ice-cream! 
P..ed roses fair on her cheeks of rose-red. 
And these are the words that her true lover said: 
"Good-by" to the city, 
To Love Point away; 
The wind's on the water. 
The boat's on the bay! 
From toil and from trouble 

Lighthearted we'll ghde, 
With lunch in a basket, 
A girl at my side!" 
231 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
ELK LANDING 

ALONG brown lane to the end of things, 
With a ribbon of river that sings and sings, 
That winds through the marshes and curves and sweeps 
Where a phantom ship of the forties creeps; 
A long brown lane and a barefoot dreamer 
Bound for the berth of the Baltimore steamer, 
To sit on the piles and the tumbled pier 
And hear it again in a far-off year 
Churn the channel by dike and fen 
To old Elk Landing and back again! 

An old warehouse with its walls grown gray 

In the moss and the mold of yesterday, 

Storied stones that were once a marker 

For the cannoneers of Peter Parker, 

For the British shells and the chainshot round 

That rattled the reeds where Frenchtown frowned. 

That tore through timbers and kicked the dust. 

And are buried now in a rime of rust. 

While a barefoot lad still leans and listens 

To the granther tales with an eye that glistens ! 

A world of green where the calamus grows 
And the winding fork of the Big Elk flows; 
A wooden bridge and a road of vine 
That stretches down in a dream of mine 
To the old, old world of a boyhood's fancy 
On the deck of the good canal boat Nancy — 



232 



ELK LANDING 



Lost long since, and more's the pity, 
In the locks, perhaps, at Chesapeake City, 
Or creeping still — as a ghost ship will — 
By the old berm bank at Blue Ball hill! 

A dreamy lane where the blooms lead down 

A mile and a mile and a mile from town; 

Where the old wharf drones in the summer sun 

And the British come with their nine-pound gun 

Where bold Sir Peter Parker spat 

And looked hellfire 'neath his cockade hat; 

And the cannon roar — and the past goes by 

In a page of dream for a dream-lad's eye. 

By the pier and the post where the dear, deep stream 

Winds round and round through the reeds of dream! 

A mansion house and a hollyhock gate. 
Where the phantoms of old, old childhood wait; 
A sound of hammers on iron and steel 
Where they bend the ribs and lay the keel 
In the shipyard piled with cypress knees, 
And piled with dreams of the silver seas, 
Of the old-time boats and the old-time place 
At the end of the long brown lane of grace — 
That long brown lane where the marshes bend 
And the feet of a lad unto dreamland wend! 



233 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

SPRING IN SOUTHERN MARYLAND 

SPRING in Southern Maryland — why, it comes before 
you know, 
And all the garden borders with the daffy-dillies' glow; 
The robins on the old lawn hop so straight, as if possesst 
To show off all the splendor of their lovely crimson vest; 
While down Patuxent river in a little painted boat 
Toward the dreams of fishing all the fishing-dreamers float: 
Spring in Southern Maryland — 

Wake and call me once again, 
Oh, spring in Calvert county 
In the land of gentlemen ! 

The grass as green as Junetime, and along the gardenwalk 
The hyacinths all blooming, while around you rings the talk 
Of the mocking bird and redwing! Take my hand, take my 

hand. 
And let me drift to springtime down in Southern Maryland, 
To gaze adown the garden and the sloping fields off there 
Where the long brown furrows open to the plowman's steady 
share: 

Spring in Southern Maryland, 

And across the furrows sweet 
The old Patuxent winding 

Where the blue bay comes to greet! 

Beyond the curving hollow, oh, the beauty of the scene, 
The hazy hills of magic in St. Mary's world of green, 



234 



CHARLES STREET 



A glimpse through fairy vistas where the feet of spring have 

trod 
Right down in all her glory from the Paradise of God 
To turn this world of beauty into Paradise for those 
Who love life's simple beauty in its gardens of the rose: 
Spring in Southern Maryland, 
Where Patuxent rolls along, 
With the Drum Point harbor gleaming 
And the sweet hills sweet with song ! 

Spring in Southern Maryland — why, it's there before you 

know, 
With sweet Miss Jonquil hiding underneath the heavy snow. 
And joy once more returning on the lips of bee and bird 
In spring's divine elation of the sweetest music heard 
In all this world of glory, as the redhead taps the tree 
To give the springtime signal to the violets and me: 
Spring in Southern Maryland — 

Take me with you, breeze and flower. 
To the shores of old Patuxent 
Axid its quiet garden bower! 



CHARLES STREET 

ITS heart is in Mount Vernon Square, 
Its head in the green wood; 
Its feet are stretched along the ways 
Where swarms the foreign brood; 



235 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

A modicum of Bon Marche, 

That sublimated store — 
And O the treasure that we have 

In Charles street, Baltimore! 

I love to watch the moving throng, 

The afternoon parade; 
The coaches rolling home to tea. 

The young man and the maid; 
The gentlemen who dwell in clubs, 

The magnates of the town — 
Oh, Charles street has a smile for them. 

And never wears a frown! 

The little shops, so cool and sweet; 

The finesse and the grace 
Which mark the mercantility 

Of such a market place; 
And then beyond the tempting stores 

The quietness that runs 
Into the calm and stately square, 

With marble denizens. 

The little and the larger stores 

Are tempting to be sure; 
But they are only half the charm 

That Charles street holds to lure; 
For here and there along the way, 

How sweet the homes befall — 



236 



CHARLES STREET 



The domicile that holds his Grace, 
The gentle Cardinal. 

The mansions with pacific mien 

Whose windows say: "Come in!'' 
The touches of colonialness, 

The farness of the din 
That rolls a city league away, 

And leaves this dainty street 
A cool and comfortable spot. 

Where past and present meet. 

A measure of la boulevard, 

Before whose windows pass 
The madam and the damoisel, 

The gallant and the lass; 
The gravest and the most sedate, 

The young and gay it calls, 
And, oh, how proper over it — 

The shadow of St. Paul's! 

Dip down the hill and well away, 

The southward track it takes: 
O fickleness, how many quips, 

How many turns it makes! 
But ever in its greensward heart, 

From head to foot we pour 
The homage of our love of it — 

Dear Charles street, Baltimore! 



237 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
OCTOBER ON THE HARFORD HILLS 

OCTOBER on the Harford hills in mist of gold comes 
by, 

A phantom of the golden day that wanders from the sky, 
Far ladders from the heavenly blue are dropped for her and 

swung 
As sweet her amber footsteps fall from golden rung to rung. 
October where the Deer Creek calls, 

The Deer Creek valleys creep. 
And there a distant bird song falls, 
Or tinkling bells of sheep. 

October on the Harford hills in beauty all her own 

Brings back in panoply of dream the beauty that has flown, 

Brings back the shadow rose of June, in Harford's hair so 

sweet, 
The twinkle of the flying hours around her velvet feet. 
October where the green vale lies 

In Httle bowls carved there 
To hold God's bubble of the skies. 
His wild wine of the air. 

October on the Harford hills, I see it tripping down 
Beside the Httle brook that flows below the Httle town; 
The homes are hidden in the trees, the trees are fronded fire. 
And whistHng to his homeward cows the yoeman's at the 
byre. 

October where the sweet life goes 
On quiet rounds of good, 

238 



SHANGHAIED 



And nature over clean hearts throws 
Her spell of solitude. * 

October on the Harford hills comes clad in skirts of mist, 
And on her lips the pearls of dew, her eyes are amethyst; 
Her kirtle is a maple leaf to glory burned, and bright 
The buckles of her sunny shoon that dance the morning light. 
October where the woods exhale 

A balsam wild and sweet, 
And while the moonlight waxes pale 
The vestal fairies meet. 



SHANGHAIED 

nnmS is the tale of a shanghaied man as he gave it to me to 
J- tell, 

Because he was sure he^d forgotten God and didn^t care much 
for hell. 

''Oh, drunk, or sober and stupid,'' he said, 

"I never shall know the which, 
But they picked me up like a thing long dead. 

From a bench and a curb and a ditch; 
They flung me down in a smoke-grimed hold, 

And I heard her engines jump, 
And I knew we were off by her piston's cough 

And the thud of her sidewheel thump. 

"I never knew much, but I knew less then 
Than I ever had known before, 

239 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Except we were seven as onery men 

As ever lay bound on a floor; 
And we snored and groaned and grunted and rolled, 

Till they carried us out in a pile, 
Where we lay stark stiff to the night stark cold 

On a wharf at Tilghman's Isle! 

''A negro captain whose bugeye lay 

At anchorage dark in the cove — 
Aboard, all hands, ere the break of day! 

Awake, with the wrath of Jove! 
Awake, from the dope and the nasty dream, 

Aching and stiff and sore. 
With fourteen weeks of it, stream to stream, 

Ere they freeze us and put us ashore ! 

" Starved and naked and lost and far 

From Potomac beds to the Sound, 
With a cuff from the end of a windlass bar, 

And a 'work, you lazy hound!' 
Oaths that rattled against the sky, 

From mouths that had never prayed. 
And the murderous hand and the bloodshot eye 

Of your gentleman unafraid! 

"Dredge chains' rattle, the frozen spume. 

Knuckles cracked open and red. 
And a crazy kind of a dream of bloom 

In a crazy kind of a head. 
Lies and blasphemy, meat that walked, 

Bread that was all but stone, 

240 



WHEN THE BAY BOATS BLOW 

And the horrible hunger for sleep that stalked 
Through blood and muscle and bone! 

"Shanghaied? Oysters? The Chesapeake Bay? 

Lord, it will be my death — 
That steamer's hold and that frozen spray, 

That fetid and fearsome breath! 
The negro captain with freckled hide. 

We stiffs on the wharf in a pile, 
And the steamboat off with her lines untied 

From the piers at Tilghman's Isle!'' 

This is the tale of a shanghaied man as he gave it to me to tell — 
And it isnH much wonder he had forgot and didnH care much 
for helll 

WHEN THE BAY BOATS BLOW 

HOARSE-VOICED trumpeters, deep-mouthed singers, 
Bloom-breath bearers and bay-dream bringers. 
Here at my window I hear them blow — 
Shrill-lipped tugs with their basin tow; 
Three-decked liners, that sleep at Light 
Till the tide swings up to the sills of night; 
Richmond packet and Norfolk steamer, 
Yonder a sHm, white. Old Point dreamer, 
A Philadelphia twenty-mile flyer — 
Blow, sweet ships, while my heart takes fire. 
Up at my window to hear you blowing, 
Till I must and I shall and I will be going! 

241 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Hark! that rumble, deep, hollow — a roller 

With a growl deep down in the depth of its boiler. 

List, a staccato, like piping of pleasure. 

Of a river reed to a bell-buoy measure. 

That's light music, a tug's shrill lipping, 

Over the tide with a sand-barge tripping. 

But yon deep tremolo, down to the knees, 

Is out of a red-funneled hulk of the seas, 

Talking in thunder to tell my ear 

A seven-sea bunker has steamed in here. 

Barnacled, battered — I know her story 

Of winds in a wild, green world of glory! 

Blow, light ditties; and blow, grim roarers, 

Spitfire tugs and the huge bay snorers! 

Here by my window high o'er the street 

The bay boats blow me a music sweet; 

Choptank freighter or Richmond packet, 

Echoing up out of Light, with its racket; 

Hoarse-throated steamers and deep-mouthed screamers, 

Shrill-lipped launches and Rock Creek dreamers; 

Up from the river or down from Pratt, 

With a wild high C or a grum B flat; 

Lazaretto or Canton Hollow — 

Wild heart, up! let us up and follow! 

Yesterday, here in the central roar. 
Where the tides of the streets of the city pour, 
White ships, dark ships, many a-row, 
Here in my window I heard them blow — 

242 



THE SUNSET HILLS OF FREDERICK 

Light-voiced singers or bass-note fellows, 
Opening wide like a steam-blown bellows; 
Home to the pier heads, off and a-swing 
To ports of dream in the lands of spring; 
Joppa, Avalon, Tangier, merry, 
From golden gardens of fruit and berry; 
Pocomoke, Cambridge — blow, blow sweet, 
While I dream by my window at German street I 

THE SUNSET HILLS OF FREDERICK 

THE sunset hills of Frederick — I see them in my dream, 
The valleys of the velvet bloom and of the winding 
stream ; 
The ridges of Catoctin sweet in the twilight west, 
And at their feet the happy town where hearts of dreaming 
rest: 

The sunset hills of Frederick, 
Ah, glow, dear dream, again, 
As to and fro my way I go. 
Mid other times and men! 

I hear young voices laughing where dancers in the night 
Swing to the tune of silvery June far up on Braddock Height ; 
Far down the dream town sparkles, the June time stars are 

sweet, 
And love is in the moonlight spell with moonbeams 'neath 
her feet: 

The sunset hills of Frederick, 

They call, and I am there. 
Wild as of old in June time's gold 
Of hill and stream and air! 

243 



IN DIXIE 



THE SHADE OF LEE 

WHERE heroes keep Valhalla, there, 
On shores of death and dream, 
Where shadowy swords of valor still 

Retain their ancient gleam; 
Where stalk the shapes of strength and might, 

In that great company 
Of splendid dead who nobly lived, 
Abides the shade of Lee. 

In every balmy breeze that blows 

Across the Southland's hills. 
In every meadow where the rose 

Its fragrant essence spills; 
In every homestead, every heart 

That honored him in life. 
It moves and lives and has its shrine — 

That shade of stately strife. 

On every field where valor trod, 

His footstep still today, 
To listening ears, with echoing tread 

Moves on its peerless way; 
In every hope that memory holds 

Invincible and dear, 
His name, his fame, his glory dwell, 

With splendor hovering near. 
247 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



In vales of sleep, eternal sleep, 

Where shadows of the dead 
Upon the shores of silent seas 

In sad procession tread. 
That shade men love who love the just — 

Comminghng with the great — 
Moves with the conscious will that holds 

Death's high and pure estate. 

In every hour of living force 

His grand example bides, 
Of courage, valor, wisdom rare. 

The modesty that hides 
The hero in the hero's deed. 

The soldier in the man — 
For in his veins the soldier blood 

Of dauntless courage ran. 

Then, though the vast Valhalla claims 

His hero form alway, 
The spirit from its far abode 

Revisits us today. 
In every flower of every field. 

In every mount and mart. 
The hero of the South is tombed 

In every Southern heart. 

Unfurl the flag, the sword unsheath, 

To deck him and salute! 
Ah, splendid 'mid the splendid dead! 

Ah, lips with dust so mute! 

248 



OLD FRIENDS FROM VIRGINIA 

Where stalk the shapes of strength and might, 

In Death's great company 
Of noblest dead who nobly lived, 

It moves — the shade of Lee! 

OLD FRIENDS FROM VIRGINIA 

OLD friends from Virginia — you know how it is! 
They've come to do shoppin', and first thing, gee- 
whizz ! 
They drop in to see you and say howdy-do. 
And your heart gets to thumpin', because it's the blue 
Of the hills of Virginia, the gleam of her seas. 
They bring along with 'em, these neighbors of Lee's! 

Old friends from Virginia — such hearty, sweet grace 
In the light of their eyes and the smile of their face! 
And first thing you're talkin' old Fauquier, perhaps, 
Or Clarke, or loved Loudoun, and dreamin' of gaps 
Where the sweet Shenandoah sings down to the sea 
Through the valleys of home where the heart sings of Lee! 

Some up from Staunton, from Petersburg some, 
A friend from Front Royal, or mebbe a chum 
From down in old Danville — Oh, comfortin' sight 
That glow of old times in their eyes of delight, 
And the glimpse it all brings you of valley and stream 
In the dear old Virginia you dream of in dream! 

Old friends from Virginia — come up fer a day 
To shop a bit, mebbe and take you away 

249 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

With touch of old handshake and how-do to skies 
Above the sweet valley where Winchester hes, 
And the river still ripples and sings to the sea 
Through the gates of the hills of the loved land of Lee! 

Old friends from Virginia — they're welcome, di-pen! 
For the women are women, the men are real men. 
And they know you'll be happy to have 'em drop in. 
Because — presto change! — in the midst of the din 
Of the city, the office, the street and the mill. 
You're down in Virginia, where love leads you still! 



SHENANDOAH 

IN thy valleys, O Virginia, where the shadows of the gray 
Move with weary banners folded, Shenandoah rolls away; 
Rolls away, rolls away, Shenandoah rolls along. 
In her heart a runic ripple, on her lips a liquid song; 
Foaming, splashing, leaping, dashing, winding wild and 

sweeping free. 
With the music of her waters laughing sunward to the sea 
Singing all the way she goeth 
Of the beauty that she knoweth. 
Singing, ringing where she fioweth, 
With the sunbeams of the summer on her breast — 
Shenandoah, Shenandoah, 
Shenandoah-doah-doah 
Silvery singer, singing down the dales of rest! 



250 



^ 



SHENANDOAH 



Silvery singer, bearing roses from the gardens of the rose, 
Shenandoah through the valleys of the phantom armies flows ; 
Flows away, flows away, singing sweetly, ringing clear 
With the voice of saddened mem'ry and the canticles of cheer . 
Leaping, sweeping, out of Dixie, where the softest shadows 

lie 
And the fishers of the ripples watch the blackbass take the fly: 

All her crystal current falhng. 

Beamy, bright and gayly brawHng, 

Liquid echoes to her calling 
Where Potomac leaps to kiss her on the mouth — 

Shenandoah, Shenandoah, 

Shenandoah-doah-doah, 
Bride of beauty from, the altars of the South! 

Bride of beauty from the valleys of the land of Dixie dear, 
Where the muffled flutes are blowing and the war drums 

wake the tear: 
Where the ragged regimentals of the weary lads and worn 
Go up the hills of glory to the love-lips of the morn; 
Go up the violet valleys and the ladders of the rose 
To rest through fadeless summers in the Master's garden 
close: 

Rushing, gushing, swinging, swaying. 

Round the rugged rocks delaying, 

Always singing, always praying. 
Pours the river of the ripple and the gleam — 

Shenandoah, Shenandoah, 

Shenandoah-doah-doah , 
Winding down the granite vestibules of dream! 

251 



SONGS OF THE BAILY LIFE 
ONANCOCK 

THE laughing king of Accomac was wild with laughter-glee, 
His realm between the Chesapeake and ocean shore to 
see. 
He laughed for fields and forests and the cots beneath the 

vine, 
For blossoms of Virginia and the balsam groves of pine: 
But if he'd seen Onanacock, 

With its clustered homes of rest, 
He'd laugh until the ripples 
Broke in billows on his breast! 

The creek is singing softly, and the Pocomoke is there. 
Bound down from piers of Pratt street to the soft Virginia air; 
She's left her freight at Crisfield, and along the narrow tide 
She seeks the sweet Onancock as a sailor seeks his bride: 
She seeks the sweet Onancock, 

Through the little creek that sings 
A song of deathless summers 
In a land of deathless springs! 

Potato fields and onions, and a happy folk to dwell 
In glory of their labor 'neath the sweet Virginia spell. 
An old Colonial mansion, with its bricks of English mold. 
Whose doors are opened for you with a heart and hand of 
gold: 

A welcome to Onancock, 

Ah, they smile it, and you know 
They mean it by the sunbeams 
That upon their faces glow! 

252 



A MOTHER OF VIRGINIA 

The laughing king of Accomac, no wonder that he laughed ! 
A figure in old legend, that his tribesmen may have chaffed — 
He knew the gates of wonder opened here upon a land 
Sweet with Virginian beauty fron Onancock to the strand: 
And if he'd seen Onancock, 

Oh, my heart, he'd see it yet, 
With the sweet creek winding yonder 
And the homes one can't forget! 

A MOTHER OF VIRGINIA 

THERE is no word but sweetheart to fit her sweetheart 
grace. 
The valor of her spirit and the sunshine of her face. 
The red rose decked her bridal^ and the white rose soon or late 
Will dream upon her stainless breast beside the marble gate. 
A mother of Virginia, 

Her great heart beating still 
To watch the gray ranks filing 
Where the battle bugles trill! 

She dreams amid her memories all the golden autumn days, 
She dreams of childhood fancies in the porch of bloomy Mays; 
A mother of brave soldiers that in shadowy rank she sees 
Go down the pleasant valleys where they joined the boys 
of Lee's. 
|6 A mother of Virginia, 

■ Her great hopes round her yet 

In dust of green mounds yonder 
p That the soul cannot forget! 

253 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

For her no tattered banner falls from its broken staff, 
For her the great war bugles in their magic music laugh; 
Her heart still beats for Dixie and she still prays through the 

night 
For God's grace to her children that have gone to face the 
fight. 

A mother of Virginia, 

In her doorway still she stands. 
Love's red rose at her bosom 
And the old flag in her hands! 

She tends the old-time garden just as she used to do 
When years were fresh with sunshine and the rosy roads 

were new; 
The musket o'er the mantle and the sword beside the bed 
Still speak to her through dreaming of the brave hearts of 
the dead. 

A mother of Virginia, 

Oh, wound beyond the years, 
Her gray lips smile forever. 

Though they smile today through tears! 

By yonder gate of roses she sees them go again. 
The dust clouds o'er the gray ranks of the fearless Dixie men; 
A '^Good-by, mother!" echoes up the long street to her soul. 
And far on hills of morning she can hear the war drums roll. 
A mothci of Virginia^ 

Still sweet with smiles to see 
The vanguard of the phantoms 
In the dreamborn ranks of Lee! 

254 



BOLIVAR 

BOLIVAR 

BOLIVAR bows good morning with the wave of an oaken 
tree, 
As it sits in a dream of glory at the gates of the land of Lee; 
The Heights of Maryland answer, with a shadow from snowy 

crest 
On the ripples of broad Potomac with its sunbeam-cinctured 
breast: 

BoHvar bows good morning, 
Maryland Heights replies; 
And morning is sweet below them. 
And sweet in the bending skies. 

Bolivar's brow is rugged, Bolivar's face is calm. 
Stung by the storms of ages, laved by the April balm ; 
Watching beside his rivers, dreaming beside the bed 
Where the confluent currents murmur and the lips of the 
streams are wed: 

Bolivar, brown and rugged; 
Maryland Heights, serene; 
And the silver of wedded waters 
Ribboning down between. 

Bolivar's Harper's Ferry is climbing from street to street 
Out of the beautiful valley with the steel trains at its feet; 
Far in the dreamy morning, mingled with mist and snow, 
A jet of steam from an engine winding a curve below: 
Bolivar, crowned with beauty. 
Lofty, and fine, and free, 

255 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Guarding with granite grandeur 
The gates of the land of Lee. 

VIRGINIA'S FIELDS OF AUTUMN 

VIRGINIA'S fields of autumn — ah, days of gold walk 
there, 
A bevy of October ghosts on phantom feet they fare; 
Through vales of Shenandoah, o'er hill and peak they fly, 
Sweet dancers on the feet of dream beneath a dawn-dew sky : 
Drift down, dear dreams of glory, 

Those old plantations call. 
And fair, I know, those loved fields glow — 
Virginia in the Fall! 

I hear the partridge drumming and the field doves skirl and 

rise; 
The warm, wide Indian summer in the glades of Orange lies, 
Potomac laughs through Loudoun and along the golden way 
The song of Shenandoah sings its sweetness through the day: 
Virginia's fields of autumn. 

Tonight the moon walks there, 
And beam by beam each little dream 
Will climb her silver stair! 



256 



BERRYVILLE 



BERRYVILLE 

CALL it old Battletown still, if you will — 
To me it is beautiful Berry ville! 
There in the forks of the road at rest, 
A rose that the valley has pinned on its breast, 
The mist on the mountains, the blue of the tide 
Where the Daughter of Stars rushes down like a bride 
To the arms of the river that waits for her merry 
By the rocks at the falls of the old Harper's Ferry: 
Beautiful Berry ville — beautiful still 
At the crest of the State and the foot of the hill; 
A red rose of Dixie in sweet Dixie air, 
With the heart of Virginia a-beat for her there! 

The sheep in the fields nibble on at the wheat. 
And the teams patter in to the old county seat; 
Wide doors stand in welcome, the roads stretch away 
To the prime and the past of the green country day; 
A faraway anvil rings sweet to the clamor 
Of the bar in the forge and the blows of the hammer; 
There's a vine by the gate, and it says unto me: 
''Walk in, feel at home, in this land of our Lee!" 
Beautiful Berry ville — queenly it lies 
'Neath the soft, balmy breath of the South's balmy skies, 
And the river flowc on from the forks at Front Royal 
To Potomac's wide arms with her heart ever loyal! 

The old homes are dreaming, as old houses will, 

In the yards where the old-fashioned lilacs bloom still; 

257 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

The old homes of history, that shook with the rattle 
Of the troops that laid waste with the cruel brand of battle, 
This land of sweet story, these vales of loved quiet, 
With the spirit of wrath and the vandal-armed riot 
That seared the green hills with the hate-kindled ire 
And stained the old walls with the black tongues of fire: 
Beautiful Berry ville — hearths love to you. 
With the far hills of haze like a crescent of blue. 
And the gleam of the river down there at their feet, 
And a tinkle of bells where the sheep nip the wheat! 

APRIL DOWN IN DIXIE 

IT'S April down in Dixie, though it's winter here today; 
The dreamy dells of Dixie dream the dewy dream of May; 
It's snowing on the hillsides, but the valleys at their feet 
Are green as grass already with the young spears of the wheat: 
It's April down in Dixie, 

Though the wind blows wintry here — 
But all my heart's in Dixie, 
And it dreams of Dixie dear! 

It's April down in Dixie, though the winds are keen we know; 
The rose is in her gardens where the balmy breezes blow; 
Virginia's woods are bonny with the Indian pipe, and we 
Are dreaming of Virginia with her rose-red lips of glee: 
It's April down in Dixie, 

And I care not what they say; 
Love leads me down to Dixie 
Through the lilac gates of May! 

258 



APRIL DOWN IN DIXIE 



It's April down in Dixie, though it's winter here today: 
Virginia dreams of lilacs at her bloomy gates of May; 
The buttercups are shining and the woods are sweet I know, 
With pink arbutus petals through the green leaves 'neath 
the snow: 

It's April down in Dixie, 

Dreaming Dixie, loved and fair, 
And my heart, my heart is longing 
To go down to dreaming there! 

It's April down in Dixie, though the wind is nipping here; 
It's greenie, grassy April down in Dixie land, the dear: 
The grape bloom wafts its fragrance and on frail and velvet 

wing 
The butterfly flames golden on the silver mists of spring: 
It's April down in Dixie, 

Don't I feel it, don't I know, 
Though all our windows rattle 
And the hills are crowned with snow! 

It's April down in Dixie, and the snowdrops swing their bells 
Along the garden borders and adown the oozy dells; 
It's April down in Dixie, if ever April grew 
Beneath the effluent beaming of the sunlit skies of blue: 
It's April down in Dixie, 

And the old elations creep 
Through the heart in dreaming Dixie 
Where the dreams of Dixie sleep! 



259 



OLD-FASHIONED THINGS 



THE GREENVILLE BAND 

THEY took me out the other night 
To hear an orches-tray; 
Far-famed musicians blew the horns 

And made the fiddles sway; 
'Twas mighty music that we heard, 

Oh, moving, great and grand; 
But echoing through it I could hear 
The little Greenville band! 

They told me there were sixty, yea, 

Full sixty pieces there 
To follow when the leader fine 

Stood up to saw the air. 
'Twas wonderful the way they made 

The music fill the land; 
But far off in the long ago 

I heard the Greenville band! 

They wore dress suits, with handsome shirts, 

And swallow tails, and all; 
And every tune they gave us there 

Was classical and tall. 
A mighty treat, I must confess; 

But 'neath that leader's wand 
I could not hear a thing except 

The little Greenville band! 
263 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

A mist, it seemed, came o'er my eyes. 

The well-dressed men about, 
The handsome women in the seats. 

All, all were blotted out! 
And there, instead, I seemed to see 

Plain folk on every hand; 
And heard far off adown the years 

The little Greenville band! 



DENIAL 

^ ^ T~^ENY us not!" in anguish oft we pray, 
jL^ Asking the little more that makes the day. 
''Deny us not!" in frequent plight we cry; 
"Nor bid the hope that rises in us die!" 
"Deny us not!" And what we ask must seem 
In our crude wisdom proper for our scheme, 
Impartial, merited, and in our view 
Just what a kind Divinity should do! 
"Deny us not!" And yet how often turns 
The wheel of time to where before us burns 
The final truth no darkling doubt can hide: 
'Twas, after all, the best to be denied! 



264 



CANDY KISSES 



CANDY KISSES 

Two for a penny, in papers of gold, 
With little love-legends in fervency told; 
Horehound and lemon, that lasted so long 
In girlhoods of fancy and ladhoods of song; 
Sweet candy kisses — I dream of you still 
In the little shop window by Partridge's hill! 

Two for a penny — ah, open and see 
The love-token hidden and waiting for thee: 
'The roses are red and the violets blue, 
No knife can sever our true love in two!" 
Sweet candy kisses — ^what legends of truth 
Youth passed with a blush to a maid in her youth! 

Two for a penny — each one with its slip 
Of love bubbling up from the heart to the lip; 
Over the desk where she studied at school, 
Cupid's sweet messages broke every rule: 
Sweet candy kisses — all snug in the jar 
On the shelf in the shop of our childhoods afar! 

Sweet candy kisses — bronze wrappers and gold. 
Each one with its lyric of loverhood rolled 
For secrets of sweethearts and keepsakes of dream 
In the jar on the shelf in the days of childgleam: 
Sweet candy kisses — love's legends have fled, 
But the violet's still blue, and the rose is still red! 



265 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE SHOEMAKER 

SHOP was in a little room 
At the back of where the bloom 
Of his little walk ran round 
With sweet-williams, and a mound 
Of the valley-lilies sweet, 
And yuh went down from the street 
Just a httle slanting like 
When you wuz a little tike. 

On a little bench he sat 

Where his tools and thread wuz at. 

And a piece of hide for soles 

Underneath the stove was set 

In one of those little bowls 

That was yellow once, or green, 

Soakin' till 'twas good and wet, 

Pliable and soft enough 

For to cut and not too tough, 

An' to keep its leathery sheen. 

Waxen ends wuz there, all white 
Till he rolled 'em hard and tight 
On his knees, with wax; and then 
Sometimes we would ask him for 
Piece of wax to chew like men 
Chew terbacker, spittin' more 
Than men have to do, fer we 
Wanted everyone to see. 

266 



THE SHOEMAKER 



Little wooden pegs fer shoes 

He held in his mouth as if 

It wuz easy as could be; 

Talkin' all the time, strange news 

Of the little town, each tiff 

'At the neighbors had, and he 

Guessed that patch would have to go 

Fer 'twas worn too much to sew. 

Blackest fingers, and black hands; 
When he washed 'em ojff, my lands! 
Must uv had to use some lye 
'Ith the soap to wash 'em by; 
An' his wife baked bread and sold 
Balsam apple, good as gold 
For a cut or bruise or sprain 
Or most any kind of pain. 

Dream me back, O life, the room 
Down the pathway lined with bloom; 
And the little bench, and there 
Old shoemaker man, 'ith hair 
Almost gone on top, but he 
Mendin' shoes fer you and me, 
With the leather for the sole 
Soakin' in the yellow bowll 



267 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

HANGIN' ON THE WAGON 

HANGIN' on the wagon — say! 
Hangin' on wuz sweet, 
When the wagon, filled with ice. 

Rumbled down the street. 
Drippin', drippin', cool and nice 
Fell the water from the ice; 
HoUerin' at the horses: "Hep!" 
Standin' on the wagon step. 

Stoppin' every now and then, 

Cuttin' off a cake to sell: 
You remember, don't you, men. 

In the days of boyhood spell, 
Iceman'd let y'u ride — git ep, 
Standin' on the wagon step! 

Inside hke a misty cave. 
Ice a-smokin', cool and sweet, 

And the water drippin' down 
Cold and clear upon yer feet: 

Scales a-bobbin' on behind. 

But y'u didn't keer ner mind. 

Ten cents worth fer Mrs. Jones! 

Clicky-click the hatchet went, 
Cuttin' off a httle hunk 

Every pound a half a cent: 
Tongs of steel to hold the cake — 
Clutch 'em tight, fer mercy sake! 

268 



HANGIN' ON THE WAGON 

Oh, the wagon, here it comes 
Up the street of Little Town; 

Youngsters ridin' on the step. 
Some uv 'em a-sittin' down, 

Some a-standin', lookin' in 

Where the cool mist rises thin! 

Old-time ice they cut on ponds 
In the winter — don't y'u know — 

Maybe thirty years or more 
In the golden long ago, 

And the water drippin' sweet 

On a little feller's feet! 

Dreams a-drippin', too, di-pen! 

As the memories of it rise. 
And the cool mists float again 

And the dim mists cloak the eyes. 
Driver shoutin': "Yoh, git ep!" 
Standin' on the wagon step, 
While the water, cool an' nice, 
Kep' a-drippin' f'um the ice! 



269 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



"A YOUNG GIRL BY THOMAS SULLY" 

A YOUNG Girl by Thomas Sully," and what need to tell 
us more? 
Framed in her oval there, she smiles with that old grace of 

yore. 
Some spirit or some fay or elf, such charm of pose and face, 
Such shadowing back to us through her of all that old-time 

grace! 
Tonight, perhaps, in fancy she will step down from the frame 
And at the old Assembly, with some silk-hosed, gallant flame, 
Dance in the stately dances of the days when hearts did thrill 
To bow before each other in the lancers and quadrille! 

He painted her for some one, who, a shadow, passed away — 
But she is still there dreaming with her cheeks a bloom of May, 
And Sully's heart transplanted to his canvas throbs us back 
To days of real lace mantles and the little knitted sacks 
They threw across fair shoulders, with the pink skin flushing 

through 
As flush the damask roses in the May morns through the dew: 
A young girl! Praised be beauty that can stay so young as 

this 
When lips are dust of roses that were once so sweet to kiss! 

There are such pageants passing as she leans in revery there — 

Such feet all silver-slippered pattering down the phantom 
stair, 

And ladies puffed and powdered, and the tall wigged gentle- 
men. 

With buckled shoon and sabres — will it never come again! 

270 



THE OLD FASHIONED BEAU 



Oh, dance, my pensive lady, as you danced on hearts of old 

In days of mighty spirits in our Baltimore of gold. 

While shadows gathering round you shall their homage still 

display 
To one whose sweet smile wins them with its rose-bloom of 

the May! 

THE OLD-FASHIONED BEAU 

HE sits in the shadow of Long Time Ago, 
The joy of the village — the old-fashioned beau. 
Who had courted the mothers when they were sixteen, 
And courted their daughters, and many between, 
And fallen in love, as the years tottered down, 
With every susceptible girl in the town — 
The old-fashioned beau with his rose and his smile 
And his cheerful heart trusting the dim Afterwhile! 

He had asked every w'dow and maid in his time, 

He had asked them in prose and asked them in rhyme; 

And the children of those who'd refused — with a sneeze — 

He'd nursed and then asked them in turn on his knees: 

Gentle, good-natured, so full of firm trust 

In the beautiful fancies love fashioned of dust — 

The old-fashioned beau, with few hairs on his crown. 

Who had courted each girl since the town was a town! 

Some humored his fancy and jollied him on. 
Till the vow on his lips was just ready to dawn, 

271 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



Then jilted him softly, and, sly as a kitten. 
Withdrew their sweet fingers and left him a mitten; 
Thus grew his collection, till surely in time 
He'd been jilted so often in prose and in rhyme 
He must have foregathered as many old gloves 
As he had shattered fancies and impotent loves! 

He'd asked them to parties, and part of his dream 

Had been to invite them down town to ice-cream; 

Every show that had come to the old village hall 

He had ta'en a new girl, and he went to them all; 

He had charmed with his manners at picnic and dance — 

This spirit of love in a world of romance — 

Bought bon-bons and soda, but ever the same, 

None gave him the pleasure of changing her name! 

THE TWO-PIN SHOW 

I LISTEN again, when the spring wind comes. 
To the sound of the fifes and the roll of the drums, 
When fifes were of tin and the drum was a pan 
And the blood of a boy in a whirlwind ran, 
And under the maples, away and away, 
The shadows are marching of once-on-a-day 
To the show in the barn, with youth's revel and din, 
Where everyone paid us two pins to get in ! 

There were acrobats clever, and gymnasts who hung 
By their heels from the broomstick trapeze-bars that swung 
From the dusty old rafters, where cobwebs were thick; 
And youthful Herr Blondins, who walked double-quick 

272 



THE TWO-PIN SHOW 



On a tightrope we made from the clothesline and tied 
From the door to the fence for the free show outside; 
x\nd jugglers and barebacks, three rings and a clown — 
When youth was a-bloom and the spring came to town! 

I hear it again, and I wish I was there, 
Where the little fifes squeak and the tin bugles blare, 
And the boy with the dishpan makes echoes that sound 
Far down through the years with a memory profound; 
And the old acrobats, with their star-spangled tights, 
Made of sisters' long stockings, are wonderful sights. 
And the elephant prances, because he is made 
Of two boys and a blanket, to swell the parade! 

"Bony" and "Banty" and all the old boys 

Were kings of the ring in that land of lost joys; 

And the beautiful lady with skirts made of stuff 

That lifted and fell with a foam and a fluff, 

Was "Fatty," dear fellow, whose cheeks were a rose. 

And who laughed like a girl and could stand on his toes 

On the back of a pony we all understood 

Was a barrel with a head and four legs made of wood! 

The drummers are drumming, and yonder they go. 
The king of the clowns and the prince of the show; 
And under the maples I follow the gleam 
Of the beautiful pageant of shadows and dream! 
Two pins for admission — oh, would I were there, 
Far, far from the years with their burden of care, 
A-swing on the trapeze and wild with the joy 
Of the wind of the spring in the heart of a boy ! 

273 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



THE TEMPLE OF OLD MOTHERS 

WIDE are its doors with beauty where they sit 
In the sweet porch of afternoon, to knit, 
Tell of proud moments, and through shadows bring 
Shapes of the sons they bore for worlds to sing 
Old deeds of glory and new deeds of might 
In far-famed battle or the council's light 
Of State and Nation. Often turning there 
One 'neath the roses in her wide arm-chair 
Speaks of the armed battalions that he led, 
Dreams of the wreath once more about his head, 
Who was her son and loved her and so wrought 
In war's dominion and the realms of thought 
That through his gifts the world to her became 
Lit with the bloom and starlight of his fame. 
One of her sons, the Minister, tells oft — 
In accents mild and exclamations soft; 
Another who bore the merchant prates of him 
Rising in mastery o'er his compeers dim; 
She, the tall lady in the gown of gray 
With olive skin and daintily crowned with bay, 
Was the Cellinis mother — yonder she. 
Who by the temple tends the branching tree, 
Nursed at her breast great Xerxes; this one drew 
Unto her bosom Alexander's thew; 
Yonder the mother of Napoleon dreams 
In the wide grove beside the wandering streams, 
Pouring their floods of crystal to make sweet 
Lawns of the temple whose divine retreat 

274 



THE TEMPLE OF OLD MOTHERS 



Keeps for these shades of mothers of great dead 
A green campaign and place of bloom to tread. 

Temple of wondrous women — o'er its walls, 
Gray as of granite, many a rose vine crawls; 
Ivy and bloomy creeper, trumpet flower — 
From base to summit of the lofty tower 
Carrying their banners to the heights aloft— 
Clothe it most sweet in turret and in croft 
With endless summer. Deep as carpet wove 
On slopes of HeHcon for feet of Jove, 
The wide lawn spreads about it where they stroll 
In the fresh morn, or when the twilight's scroll 
Down through the purple sunset paints the west 
With dreams of childhood twittering to its rest. 
Mothers of all the ages here repose 
Beneath these templed porches of the rose- 
Sweet mothers of mighty masters of the age 
Whose name fame writes on history's golden page 
With letters of the deathless dew 
Of the vast bowl and heavenly vault of blue. 
Mothers of men majestic, queens who reared 
Knights of the battles in dim tales ensphered 
Of far-off wars and tourneys of lost dream 
In the bright splendor of the lance's gleam; 
Mothers of statesmen, makers of states and song, 
The swart GoUath, and the Uthe David strong 
With strength of heaven assisted; Tasso sweet; 
Captains of armies, admirals of the fleet. 
Sculptors and painters; small men, bent of brow, 

275 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Who in the tomes of ancient wisdom plow, 
Tearing from darkness and the rocks of ruth 
Knowledge of life and love of life and truth; 
Mariners, merchant masters, men whose tears 
Fell in lone watches of the pioneers 
On peaks of Darien or on plains that sleep 
Where the huge creatures of the jungle creep, 
Tigers of Bengal and that Nemeian beast 
Who on the bones of heroes makes his feast. 

Sweet in their groves of shadow rest they now 

By the Arcadian fountains! Sweet, somehow, 

Dream we these templed mothers; sweet to know 

In the long journey we may have to go 

Through Enna and the dark sea till we land 

On the far-sought and ever-hoped-for strand, 

We may find there entempled our own old 

In a green grove, where bloomy meadows fold 

Round them in summer as a peace that grows 

In an old lawn or quiet garden-close. 

Sweet to remember mothers in sweet state. 

Crowned with the bay leaves, and immortal great 

Through great sons given by them to serve their land! 

Yonder, the wide door thronging, see them stand 

Smiling ineffable oldness, crowned and smiled 

Still with the mother-yearning for loved child; 

Crowned with the dream of Mothers — ^pride and joy! 

She who saw time grant kingdoms to her boy. 

She who saw ages write her son's name high. 

She who saw hers for country dare and die, 

276 



THE LITTLE BROTHER OF BRITTOMAR 

She who saw hers exalted by his grace 
In art or skill to invest his time and place 
With the divinest music, picture, lay — 
All in the temple's porches, day by day. 
Resting and waiting till loved feet known well 
Pass on the way to fields of asphodel! 



THE LITTLE BROTHER OF BRITTOMAR 

RITTOMAR, kingly and grand was he, 
A leader of battles in Normandy; 
Or a Briton bold, or it matters not 
Where he flourished, or when, or what; 
The dates are hazy, the records stained 
With many a drop where the red blood rained. 
Only this do we surely know. 
That his arm was strong, and he laid men low. 
And he conquered kingdoms and gathered power, 
And he lived for himself, and he passed in an hour! 

Here, however, the tale grows sweet 
That the chronicles of the blessed repeat: 
For a little brother had Brittomar, 
Who shines in the night like a golden star; 
For he had no envy of crown or sword. 
But sought sweet service of Christ, the Lord. 
Cowled and hooded, with beads and cross. 
Where men had grief and where hearts had loss. 



277 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Where children hungered in wind and rain 
And lives grew weary with sin and pain, 
Where fever burned and the plague raged wild, 
He moved like a shadow of little child, 
Tender and faithful, as one who chose 
To spurn the banner and carry the rose! 

Great grew Brittomar, wealth and strength. 

And they knew and feared him from length to length 

Of land and sea where he strove and struck 

For selfish purpose and rare good luck: 

But yesterday not a blossom led 

To the dust of Brittomar, long since dead, 

Not a stone was left that had held his name 

In carven records of power and fame; 

All, all had vanished; his glory, too. 

Time drank as the sunlight drinks the dew; 

And not in missal and not on scroll 

Was a word writ down of his bloody soul. 

Nor an altar lifted to star and sky 

That men might cherish his memory by! 

His ships have sunk and his walls are dust, 
His spears are broken, his sword is rust; 
The citadels that he reared have gone. 
His towers no longer confront the dawn; 
His castles vanished, his empires fell, 
With hardly a hieroglyph to tell 
Of dreams he dreamt and the hopes he held 
And the ranks he slew and the hosts he quelled, 

278 



THE LITTLE BROTHER OF BRITTOMAR 

Of the gold he spent and the wealth he won — 
Dreams and the dreamer are dead and done! 

The little brother of Brittomar went, 
A quiet monk, on a mission bent; 
Water and bread for the hungry poor. 
Comfort and cheer for the mourner's door; 
Wine and berry for weak and ill — 
And his spirit moves on its mission still. 
While those who kneel by the roadside shrine 
Pray for him ever with faith divine; 
And old, old women, and old, old men 
Tell of his service again and again, 
Praising his patience and blessing his worth, 
And how much sweeter he made the earth. 
With song for sorrow and faith for fear 
Whenever his bloom -bright face drew near! 

Make us, O Father, who sometimes cry 

For the power Thou givest to conquer by. 

Rather than Brittomar — brusque and bold — 

The brothers of Brittomar, hooded and s tolled, 

Meek and humble and strong to bear 

The silent battles of grief and care; 

B ringers of pity and makers of light 

Where darkness gathers and all is night; 

Silently, sweetly doing our best 

To heal life's trouble and touch to rest 

The hearts that tremble, the feet that slip, 

The hands that falter and lose their grip; 

279 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Serving, not conquering; singing, not strong; 
Patience, not power, except over wrong; 
Hearts of the morning and spirits of youth 
In the long, glad service of love and truth! 

Little brothers of Brittomar, Lord, 

Who break the lances and shiver the sword; 

Arming our might with the cross that grows 

In the roadside shrine where the poor man goes; 

Happy, if ever through grief and gloom. 

We help with our pity and lift with our bloom ! 

SLEEPING IN THE GARRET 

SLEEPING-IN-THE-GARRET time- 
Like lost echoes in a rhyme, 
Mist and music, moon of haze, 
Float the dreams of boyhood days; 
Old, low-raftered room, so high 
Used to bump the very sky 
When we went to bed, we thought, 
In those nights with magic fraught! 

Sleeping in the garret — there! 
Boyhood feet have climbed the stair 
Once again to that green isle 
Of the days of golden smile: 

Dusty chamber, mud-wasp stained, ^m 

Shingles sweet with music, rained '^1 

With that drowsy slumber-chime 
Of the rain of summer time! 
280 



^ 



SLEEPING IN THE GARRET 

Sleeping in the garret seems 
Only now a mist of dreams, 
But, through all the pain and blight, 
Would that I could climb tonight 
Up those stairs unto that room 
Where I watched the starlight bloom, 
And the window's widening view 
Brought me hemispheres of blue! 

Sleeping-in-the-garret days — 
Wrap me, waft me in their haze. 
Drifting into drowse once more 
To the night train's far-off roar. 
To the soughing of the trees. 
To the low voice of the breeze. 
And the ghost-fear of the child — 
Covered head and heartbeat wild! 

Sleeping in the garret — you 
Must have slept in garrets, too! 
Oh, my brothers of the bloom. 
Of the wayside's spilled perfume, 
Country born and village bred — 
Don't we wish we were in bed. 
Listening to that magic woof 
Of the raindrops on the roof! 



281 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

THE ARMY OF JIM AND BILL 

ONE of them walked with a wooden leg, 
And one had a wooden arm: 
Jim and Bill, to the bugle's trill 

And the echoing drum's alarm. 
They carried a faded and tattered flag, 

As heppety-hep they went. 
Gray and wrinkled and battle-scarred, 
Lame and weary and bent. 

Bright their eyes with the glory-glow. 

Sweet their lips with smile. 
There by the sad white stones a-row, 

Platoon and single file; 
There with a rose and a tear of love 

For the dead beneath the hill; 
And sweet the sun looked from above 

On the army of Jim and Bill. 

CHckety-click went the wooden leg. 

And the wooden arm went creak; 
As there by the dead, with hats off head. 

They both began to speak: 
"We've buried 'em all but a mighty few, 

Our comrades of the fray. 
And under the sod and under the dew 

They wait the judgment day. 

"But whether we're two or whether one. 
Whenever the day comes round, 
282 



THE BALSAM-APPLE LADY 

We come for the sake of the deeds they've done 

To consecrate this ground." 
Up and on with a cHckety-click, 

Arm in arm they went, 
The beautiful army of Jim and Bill, 

Weary and worn and bent. 

Smiling and sweet, with eyes ashine, 

Arm in arm to the tune 
Of the phantom flutes of the far recruits 

They march in the golden noon: 
A wooden arm and a wooden leg, 

Away to the graves on the hill. 
Faithful and true to the loved 'neath the dew — 

The army of Jim and Bill ! 

THE BALSAM- APPLE LADY 

THE roses of love in the gardens of yore 
Are blooming in dreams just as sweet as before, 
If we care to go back to the days of the child 
When the lips were an echo of hearts beating wild! 
Ah, out of the garden the shadows I knew 
Float by on the mists of the dawn and the dew ! 

Her shadow comes often in dreaming to me, 

And I dream of the lad that she took on her knee 

When bruises were frequent and wounds were the style- 

The gentle old lady who wore a sweet smile, 

And believed balsam-apple would cure every ill 

That childhood might suffer in climbing life's hill! 

283 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 



The jar with the apples of heaHng and balm, 
How it brought little hearts grace of comfort and calm, 
When through bandages gently and tenderly placed 
She poured the mild lotion that trickled and raced 
With a sting and a smart to the seat of the sore 
Little lads alv/ays had in the child-days of yore! 

Ah, balsam of healing, your value we knew. 

But the dear Httle lady was part of it, too. 

And the wounds at her touch and her care went away 

Like a phantom that fades in the sunlight of day — 

For her smile was a tonic, her tenderness wrought 

A charm all its own in the comfort it brought ! 

Life wounds us so often, its ills are so great 

When we leap to the battle of living and fate — 

And there's no balsam-apple, no tender old face 

To cheer us and charm with the soul of its grace, 

Except in the dreams that have faded and fled, 

With their lips that are dust and their bloom that is dead ! 

Ah, dear little lady! Ah, balsam of cheer! 

In the shadows you drift of the mist and the tear, 

And often when wounded and weary and blue 

I long for the heaHng and comfort of you. 

As I dream of the days of the gardens of yore 

That are blooming in dream just the same as before! 



284 



PLUM-COLORED PANTS 



PLUM-COLORED PANTS 

WHAT am I laughing at, sitting out here, 
Deep in the dreams of a yesteryear? 
Nothing, my darling, but glimpses of thought 
Fingers of memory in patterns have wrought 
Of sunshine ^nd shadow that take me far back 
To days in a town at the end of a track, 
Where clearer than all in the vision, perchance, 
Is Greenbury Jones in his plum-colored pants. 

Just a bit faded and quite a bit worn, 

And maybe a patch where the seat had been torn; 

But ever in splendor and glory they made 

Their owner a creature in grandeur arrayed; 

For they served him at weddings, at court and at sales — 

At "meeting" and burials, going for mails, 

Picnic and party and festal and dance, 

Greenbury Jones wore his plum-colored pants. 

Sets me to tittering whenever I see 

Their girth at the belt and those bags in the knee; 

And the owner, all wisdom, astride of a box 

At the old general store, with his quips and his knocks, 

His views of the weather and dicta of state 

When discussing the Commonweal's predestined fate; 

A straw in his mouth and an I-know-it glance — 

Greenbury Jones in his plum-colored pants. 



285 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 
THE CHESTNUT VENDER 

WITH his little charcoal pan 
On his little pinewood stand; 
With his air of Caliban, 

And his fine Italian hand, 
He has cut them, and they roast. 

Popping open, white and sweet. 
And my lips, they sing a toast 
To the vender on the street: 

Chestnut vender, hail and health. 

Life be luck for you, and wealth, 

As youVe measured life for me 

With that smile that glows with glee, 

Heaping up your cup of tin 

Not alone with nuts within. 

But with dreams of drifted beauty 

On the hill and on the wold. 

And with mists of morn in autumn 

On the coasts of fairy gold! 

Chestnut vender, here I buy 
Amber dawn and opal sky; 
Meadow dream and woodland spell 
In your little cup you sell; 
And the hot nuts, what are they 
But a door that leads away 
From this corner with its clatter 
To the vales that swim for me 

286 



THE POORHOUSE YARD 



With the fine October weather 
In a world of vine and tree! 

With his Httle charcoal pan, 

In the chilly morn or noon, 
Olive-brown as Caliban, 

He is measuring cups of June; 
He is whistling airs that mean 

Dreams to him of childhood glee 
By the waves that roll in sheen 

To the shores of Napoli! 



THE POORHOUSE YARD 

ON a little green bench in the poorhouse yard 
They are sitting in the sunlight, dreaming hard. 
An old man, drooping as his jaws droop down; 
An old, old woman, once a matron of the town; 
A fiddler with a fiddle that is old as the hills, 
And the little weazened pauper who can never pay his bills. 
The poorhouse yard, the poorhouse yard, 

Why, it's green as grass can be; 
And a whitewashed fence, and a hard wooden b-^nch 
That is under a mulberry tree. 

On bright, sweet days when the sun shines fair, 

The old poor people are always there; 

They all smoke pipes, the women and the men. 

And they all dream dreams, and the past comes again, 

287 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

And they're not old paupers in the poorhouse yard 
Just sitting on a bench and dreaming hard. 
The poorhouse yard, the poorhouse yard, 

It's a quiet old place, indeed, 
And the autos roll by with those inside 
Who take such a very little heed. 

They all eat together at a long rough table, 

Which they all sit around who are strong and able; 

Some have bandannas on their httle wrinkled heads, 

Some stay all day in their httle pauper beds; 

Some cry, some laugh, they're a very changeful lot, 

And they like the grassy yard and the warm, sunny spot. 

The poorhouse yard, the poorhouse yard. 
My heart, how I seem to stand 

And watch through the fence those poor old folk 
As they dream of a brighter land! 

There are red peppers hanging from the old porch beams, 

And beans tied up in a bag: and it seems 

Like a quaint, far place in another kind of land 

Where they wait, wait, wait for the beckoning of a hand, 

And a Httle, little boat on a far, fair shore 

Where they'll some day go across and come back no more. 

The poorhouse yard, the poorhouse yard. 
And the bench and the mulberry tree; 

Oh, all day long, in my toil, in my song. 
Those poor old people I can see! 

Some mumble as they talk, with a mouthful of gums; 
And no one in the world knows what dear dream comes 

288 



THE TRAIN IN THE NIGHT 

Of little happy childhoods or another life than this 
When they were "better off" in the goods of worldly bliss; 
The poor old people in the poorhouse yard, 
In the sunlight on the bench that is rough and hard. 
The poorhouse yard, the poorhouse yard, 

With a smell of boiling cabbage near; 
Or of turnips in the fall, and the old folk by the wall, 
With a fiddle, and a pipe, and a tear! 



THE TRAIN IN THE NIGHT 

WE lived in a village, oh 
Once a way, long time ago. 
Where there was a depot, not 
In the town, but off a lot 
From the houses where you sleep. 
And at night the trains 'ud creep 
Down the grade and up the hill 
While y'u laid there just as still 
Listenin' to 'em while they'd roar 
Till you couldn't hear no more! 

Oh, that music, out of sight. 
Of a train within the night! 
Some likes to be sung to rest 
On the ocean's stormy breast; 
'At is, I have heard it said 
That they do, instead uv bed; 
But when it was long ago 
289 



SONGS OF.-THE DAILY LIFE 

An* way off the train *ud blow, 
Then come roarin' nearer, gee, 
That was music 'nough for me! 

As I said, the village where 
We lived once, it wasn't there 
By the depot close so you 
Felt the house shake most in two, 
But far off enough to be 
Hidden away behind a tree 
And to make the train sound so 
Rumbly like y'ud want to go 
Right off in a kind uv sleep 
Just a-listenin' to it creep. 

Mile or more away a bridge 
Was, an' then there was a ridge 
All down grade it had to come, 
Hittin that bridge just like a drum; 
An' y'u heard it there in bed 
Like a muffled drum instead 
Of a loud one rattlin' by 
Till y'u couldn't shut an eye; 
An' y'u liked to hear it, for 
There was music in its roar. 

I kin hear it yet, it seems. 
Way off there in childhood dreams 
Hear it whistle, long and low, 
Way off in the long ago, 
290 



THE GREENVILLE OYSTER PARLOR 

An' go on behind the town 
Rollin' and a-rumblin' down 
Till at last it seemed so far 
That y'u thought it was a star 
Way off rumblin' in the skies, 
So much sleep was in yer eyes. 

THE GREENVILLE OYSTER PARLOR 

I WOULD I could taste it as once of old, 
That soup with the butter on top, like gold 
Had melted and bubbled there, settHng down 
On top of the milk and the juice hke a crown! 
I would I could stop in that dear little shop 
On the street where the mem'ries of yesterday hop, 
And all of old Greenville in oyster time went 
To sniff the fried oysters and catch the fine scent 
Of the soup they were making and bringing in hot, 
So rich, and just flavored to hit the right spot! 

Court days in Greenville, and oysters on tap! 
Half-shelled for the men at the raw-bar mayhap; 
In buckets for famiHes — for all dreams allied 
With Greenville remember that "Families Supplied!'* 
But in come the judge and the lawyers at noon, 
And the witnesses, too, and there's something in tune 
To the idea of oysters on each beaming face. 
With no time for frills or for fashion or grace. 
As they order their stews, and they come in a rush, 
With pickles cut up on a plate — won't you hush! 

291 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Outside the bow window six barrels of them sat, 
Just up that morning, and all of them fat. 
And all of them flavored with Chesapeake's brine — 
Like the tang and the solace of some ancient wine 
That has lain for long ages in grottoes of stone 
Far down where the shadows dwell dark and alone. 

Upon that bow window, such art there behold, 

An oyster wide open, so fat and so bold. 

That it seemed rolling out of the tri-colored shell; 

And hard as the artist had found it to spell, 

All of the people in old Greenville knew 

Just what he meant with two WWs in "stew." 

Ah, the old oyster parlor in Greenville ! This day 

I can dream of it still in the sweet faraway; 

And that soup in the kitchen just swimming in butter — 

No wonder you heard all the customers utter 

A sigh as they took up the first spoon to taste 

And felt the warm good of it down to the waist. 

And broke some more crackers, the old "Trenton" kind. 

And cast everything clear away from the mind 

But that soup, and its richness, and there on the plate 

The sliced home-made pickles that made Greenville great! 



292 



THE SCISSORS GRINDER 



THE SCISSORS GRINDER 

AWAY back there in the dear old town, 
Where the days go by and the dreams come down: 
Away off there in the mists that flow 
From the rivers of rest in the long ago; 
Away, away, down the httle bloom street, 
A bell goes ringing and tinkling sweet: 
Scissors to grind, scissors to grind, 

Scissors to grind, it calls. 
As up and down through the Httle town 
Its sibilant caroHng falls! 

Away back there where the world was young 

And under the maples the childheart sung. 

The scissors grinder comes down the way 

In the lanes of that beautiful yesterday. 

And he stops his wheel, and he takes his stand. 

And he grinds as he sings of the promised land: 

Sings as he grinds, sings as he grinds, 
Wrinkled and tanned and brown. 

While round him cluster the lads that muster 
When scissors-man comes to town! 

Away back there in the maple shade 

He whirrs the wheel, while beneath the blade 

The sparks fly off in a glittering spray 

To the dear delight of the hearts of play. 

Drip, drip, drip, from a can o'er the wheel 

The water drops downward to whet the steel: 

293 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Drip, drip, drip, as he sings and grinds, 

Bearded and brown and queer. 
We dance and prance in the strange romance 

Of the far-off, beautiful year! 

Away back there when the gray dusk's wings 
Are folded about him who grinds and sings, 
We follow him out to the edge of the town 
And see him go over the hills and down — 
See him go down to the golden rim 
Of the faraway places of fancy dim: 

Follow him, follow him round and round. 
Over the hills and on. 

To the golden gleam of the cities of dream 
In the violet valleys of dawn! 

THE STORE THAT HAD THE BELL ABOVE 

THE DOOR 

I WALKED around the city in the pleasant afternoon, 
And saw the great apartment stores, with all their busy 
tune; 
I strolled along the avenues and saw the fancy shops. 
The great glass-plated windows and the gay electric drops, 
But ever as I wandered there came back to me the more 
The memory of the shop that had the bell above the door. 
You heard it jingle, jingle, 

When your heart went beating wild, 
As you entered with your penny 
In the town of Little Child. 

294 



THE BELL ABOVE THE DOOR 

The store was just the front room of a house where people 

dwelt, 
And back of it the oven where the baking cookies smelt; 
And they were always busy in the back room, so they hung 
The bell that when the door was ever opened it was rung, 
And tingle, tingle, tingle, on its spiral spring it played 
Through all the golden mornings that for little child were 
made. 

You heard it start to ringing 

When you pushed the door so slow 
In the little store of childhood 
In the land of Long Ago. 

At Christmas time the window was a world of candy canes, 
And little candy baskets glowed through memory's window 

panes; 
At Halloween false-faces hung on strings around the room, 
And all along the little shelves they scared you with their 

gloom; 
And Saturdays brought doughnuts with the powdered sugar 

on 
All in a glass dish glowing Hke the autumn frost at dawn, 
Apartment stores are splendid 

In these days of change and might; 
But how I love the little store 
In childhood's Land of Light! 

You squeezed and squeezed your penny in your little hand 

that way, 
And stood on tiptoe wondering what the one who came would 

say; 

295 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Or if she'd be the woman with the big hairs on her chin, 
Or be the little lady with the soft and gentle grin, 
A little lace cap wearing and a little knitted shawl, 
Who let you look at everything and even touch the doll. 
Oh, jingle jingle, jingle, 

Little bell of Nevermore, 
In that little shop of childhood 
With the bell above the door! 

THE SLEEPING MOTHER 

HER saintly head is pillowed where she lies 
In the sweet noon of summer, on a rose; 
And dreams, like feet of violets cross her eyes — 
She sees each child, in fancy, where it goes. 
This one and that one, wheresoe'er they stray, 
Her vision summons from their toil's eclipse. 
Her arms around them at the end of day. 
Her lips of love pressed on their answering lips. 

The twilight loves her, and the stars come by 
In twinkling cadence to behold her face. 
Where, with the glory of the holy sky, 
It gives forth beauty of its slumbering grace. 
Her gray locks flutter in the wind that stirs 
With phantom fingers at her gentle brow. 
And all that peace holds sweet for life is hers 
In that great slumber that is on her now. 

She hath been patient through enormous years 
Of our impatience; and has held it true 

296 



THE SLEEPING MOTHER 



That faith makes motherhood a shrine of tears 
Down the long valleys love must wander through. 
Those slender fingers and that frail, white hand, 
How soft and soothing have they touched our pain 
When in the thunder of the roaring land 
We have been wounded and have fought in vain! 

Dear, holy feet, how many a mile they've trod 
For our sakes solely, in their day by day 
Of faithful service to her faith in God, 
That we might go with singing at our play! 
Oh, light divine of twilight and of morning. 
Robe her in sanctity, that we may see 
That far-off touch of splendor and adorning 
God gives a mother when he sets her free! 

Maybfe she feels us to her arms yet stealing, 
And clasps us loving in her dream of peace. 
With that full heart of her old mother-feeling 
That knows no death and hungers not to cease! 
Oh, little infants, with your fresh young faces, 
And sons and daughters grown to high estate, 
Drawn to the magnet of her deathless graces, 
Take her old hand and lead her through the Gate! 

Lift up her head that sweetly pillowed lies, 
Lean with your lips unto her lips grown cold 
In that quick falling of the sweet surprise 
Of sleep's eternal and immortal fold! 
She will not frighten e'en the tiniest creature 

297 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

With that child-dread of something strange and dim; 
For thou, loved mother, hath on every feature 
In thy sweet sleep put on a smile of Him! 



APPLE TODDY 

MUSIC made it, laughter filled it, 
Mirth upon her red lips spilled it; 
Youth and beauty in its stream 
Turned it into dance and dream. 



Memory kept it twenty years 
In a closet, till its tears 
Bubbled round the cork and ran 
Where the golden spiders span. 

Where they ran with webs they wound 
O'er it till 'twas hardly found 
But for Pleasure on her way 
Bringing it to light one day. 

Fiddles twanged with joy to greet it. 
Morning came with flowers to meet it, 
Passion said 'twas of the vine 
Whence Olympus made its wdne. 

Poetry tasted — it was dew. 
It was skies of April blue; 
It was Fancy — girl of glee — 
Dancing 'neath a damson tree! 

298 



OLD MAN TOBACCO 



Q 



OLD MAN TOBACCO 

UIET in the evening for the people of the poor, 
And old man Tobacco comes a-tapping at my door: 
Old man Tobacco, 

With a smile that seems to say: 
**Fill up your pipe, my hearty, 
And we'll smoke care away!" 

Weary of the trouble and the aching and the pain, 
And old man Tobacco comes a-tapping there again: 
Old man Tobacco, 

Like a comfort in the night. 
With his "Fill up, my hearty. 
And I'll let you have a light!" 

Sober stars above us and the silver moon ashine. 
And old man Tobacco at this cabin door of mine: 
Old man Tobacco, 

With the comfort of his smile, 
And his "Fill up, my hearty. 
And you needn't mind the style!" 

Care goes, and sorrow, and a sweetness comes to me. 
And old man Tobacco is the cause of all the glee: 
Old Man Tobacco, 

With his funny, curling smoke. 
And his "Fill up, my hearty, 
And you'll think life a joke!" 



299 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

OLD VIRGINIA HAM 

MELTED butter on the tongue, 
Meadows where the world is young; 
Clover valleys, where the dew 
Sifts its silver mist o'er you; 
Taste of nature at her best — 
Old Virginia ham's the rest! 

Name the flavor? Never while 
There's no name for taste of smile 
Of the sunlight through the trees 
And the humming of the bees 
At the honeysuckle Hps 
Of the land where June time trips! 

What's it like? I do declare! 
What's it like to taste the air 
Of a mountain or a vale. 
Or a blue sea where the sail 
Of an argosy of love 
Soars with sapphire skies above? 

Have another sHce, you say? 
Thanks, I will! No other way 
Anywhere in all the land 
That a man can — out of hand — 
Eat a flavored meat that seems 
Melting on your tongue in dreams! 



300 



THE LASS BENEATH THE BONNET 

THE LASS BENEATH THE BONNET 

WHEN the triumphs and the conquests of the heart 
are counted o'er, 

When they tell of love that flourished in the days of never- 
more, 

When they weigh the charms of loving and their amours dwell 
upon. 

Round those tender recollections music echoes, roses run: 

When the world has worn one weary with its flanneur and 
its flash, 

With its chain of charming maidens carrying hearts with 
sweep and dash, 

Then a vision looms before me and a song sounds sweet and 
low — 

Ah, the lass beneath the bonnet that I loved so long ago! 

The old-time striped simbonnet, where she used to hide her 

face. 
The sweet old-fashioned lilacs that she carried with such 

grace. 
The curls that used to dangle where her shoulders sloped so 

sweet, 
The little schoolgirl figure with its touch of grace petite. 
The little checkered apron and the skirt of Highland plaid — 
Ah, the vision makes me merry and the echo makes me sad, 
For through tides of time that flow not another lass, I know. 
Has smiled beneath a bonnet as she smiled so long ago! 



301 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

Purple splendor of adventure marks the marches of the heart, 
Modern love is like a measured and a very mundane art; 
Hands are offered, hearts are bartered, Cupid wears the dollar 

mark. 
And the sweet, old-fashioned spirit dies upon the circling- 

dark. 
So, I love the echo ringing through the old times unto me, 
And the little vision swinging down the lanes of rosy glee — 
The lass beneath the bonnet waiting where the lilacs grow, 
Ah, the lass beneath the bonnet that I loved so long ago ! 

THE KNOWING FRIEND 

SOME people think a dog don't know. 
Mine does. 
Those big brown eyes with wisdom glow 

Behind their fuzz. 
They have a language, too, far sprung 
From speech beyond the speech of tongue. 
And he can talk with those fine eyes 
With meaning more than men full wise. 

Some people say a dog can't think. 

Mine can. 
Else, why that almost human wink. 

That knowing scan? 
Else, why the evidence so real 
He hath the common gift to feel 
Sorrow and gladness, and put on 
Hate with a growl, joy with a fawn? 

302 



THE KNOWING FRIEND 

Some people claim a dog's no good. 

Mine is. 
No nobler heart — ^when understood — 

Than his! 
No truer and more loyal friend, 
Ready to warder and defend, 
Childlike with happiness when day 
Brings me to twilight's homeward way. 

Some people think a dog's a brute. 

Mine's not. 
Noble, affectionate, astute — 

That's what! 
Worthy the love that life can spare. 
Always the sentinel spirit there, 
Tender, heroic, faithful, wise: 
Look! you can see it in his eyes. 

Some people think a dog don't care, 

And so 
Hand him an oath, and seldom spare 

The blow. 
Creature more sensitive ne'er drew 
Breath through a heart more stainless true; 
Spirit ne'er suffered such as he; 
Look in those eyes and read their plea! 

Dogs are just dogs, I know, 
But then, 



$03 



SONGS OF THE DAILY LIFE 

So are men only, as they go, 

Mere men ! 
Dog is that cross, upon the whole, 
Between the unsoulful and the soul; 
Believe me, a treasure in the end — 
Dear comrade and a knowing friend! 



GOOD-NIGHT 

GOOD night, good-night — ah, little cares and troubles! 
Good-night, good-night — fair hopes and golden bub- 
bles! 
Good-night, good-night — dim shadows, hopeful gleaming, 
Lost and forgotten in life's fitful dreaming! 




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BINDERY INC. 



^ DEC 88 



N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 








